George and Dee were above the channel and west of Orleen. No more than a hundred years now separated the planes.
"What shall we do?" George demanded for the tenth time. And then an idea came to him. They could not attack Toroh until he reached his destination. He would be among his own army then, and rescue of Azeela would be impossible. But if Azeela could separate herself from Toroh now, he could never find her in time and probably wouldn't try.
George explained it to Dee. Azeela was not bound; could she persuade Toroh on some pretext to land on the ground—then leap from the plane? The shock of stopping in time should be no different than when the plane itself stopped.
Azeela had already thought of it; the idea had been prompted by the fact that Toroh's plane was running out of fuel. He would have to conserve it, not use the 'copters, or else he would have none left with which to get up north.
George was trembling with excitement. "Tell her to suggest that they land."
Toroh was, at that instant, landing. It was a familiar spot to Azeela; she described it exactly to Dee, and the younger sister recognized it.
Toroh's plane had entered the second century before Fahn's time-world when George—some fifty years further back—arrived at the spot in space Azeela was describing. There was the little rise of ground, with the channel beyond. The vegetation was different, but the level rock was there. And Toroh's plane was resting on that level rock.
Dee's voice was shaking so that she could hardly talk. "Will it—kill her, George?"
He was white faced, tense. "Tell her to read the dials as exactly as she can."
Azeela read them. George held his watch in his hand; he noted the hour and minute it gave.
"She has called Toroh's attention to something outside," Dee's voice translated swiftly. "She opens the cabin door. He is behind her but he does not suspect."
George kept his eyes on his watch. Two minutes since Azeela gave them her dial-reading, and he knew the approximate time-velocity of the other plane.
"She is on the platform. The blurred rock is only a few feet below her. Azeela is pretending something is wrong under the plane. Toroh is beside her—but he does not touch her. He does not suspect she would dare...."
Three minutes and a half.
"She jumps—"
George waited. "Is she all right? Is she all right?"
Silence.
"Can't you get her? Oh, Dee, can't you get her?"
The communication was broken.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"It fell," Rogers murmured. "Was that Toroh's plane, or George's?"
Loto did not answer; he stared with set face at the crystal mirror, which was turning purple with the deepening shadows of nightfall. The mountains into which the plane had fallen were a vague silhouette against a sky of stars.
"If we could only see over there," Rogers added wistfully. "Is this tower we're looking from now the nearest to the mountains, Loto?"
It was the nearest. But Fahn was talking swiftly into a small mouthpiece beside him.
"We may be able to see into the mountains," he said in a moment. "We must find out which plane it was. Perhaps Toroh fell and was killed."
The anxiety on his face belied the calmness of his tone. His two daughters were out there; possibly one or both had met death in that falling plane.
A man entered the cave-room hurriedly, a solitary worker whom Fahn had summoned from another part of the cavern. A youngish man, he wore dark glasses, a black robe and gloves.
Fahn questioned him briefly; he brightened, nodded, and hastened away again.
Loto explained: "He's been working on a new invention, Father. We hoped to use it in the war, but now we fear the attack may come before it's ready. There is only one small model constructed—finished today."
The man returned with a small mechanism—a black circular disk, an inch thick and two feet in diameter. On it was mounted a cone-shaped lens a foot high. It looked something like a tiny model of the lighthouse lens. An operating mechanism was fastened behind the lens; it was an open box with tiny coils of wire inside. And near this was what looked like a miniature searchlight.
Fahn inspected the apparatus. His assistant made some connections, adjusting another mechanism on the table. Then, turning the disk over and holding it in the air above his head, he released it. The thing floated, motionless, its lens-tower hanging downward. The small searchlight also pointed downward and from it a beam of blue-white light struck the cave-floor with a circle of brilliant illumination.
Fahn smiled his approval; the young assistant seemed gratified.
"It's a development of the communication towers, combined with the levitation dais you saw at the Festival—the apparatus Toroh's brothers tried to steal," Loto said to his father.
A moment later the young scientist had disappeared with his flying lens, taking it outside the cavern to release it into the air.
Fahn sat at the table with the newly installed mechanism under his fingers. In a few moments the assistant was back, empty-handed; he stood before the now blank crystal mirror with the other men, anxiously watching for the success of his work.
"This was greatly used a few centuries ago," Fahn said. He sighed. "Our ancestors knew so much; it is so hard to keep up with them."
The crystal mirror presently became illumined. The scene was the darkness of night; stars reflected moonlight from a moon just outside the line of vision. Below—a thousand feet, perhaps—a vague palm-dotted landscape was sliding into view.
To the watchers, the illusion was like flying through the night, looking downward.
"I shall light the searchlights," Fahn said.
A broad circle of blue-white illumination fell upon the shifting land. Across it, the palms of the island were moving backward. The viewpoint of the whole scene was unsteady. The horizon bobbed up and down, like the horizon viewed from a plunging ship. The moon showed momentarily, them swung sidewise out of sight.
Soon the channel appeared; the dark mountains were coming nearer; they tilted downward, almost out of sight, as the lens mounted an incline to pass above them.
"Can we find where the plane fell?" Loto asked anxiously.
Fahn did not answer at once. At last he said: "It will be difficult. It may have fallen behind the mountains, or into them. I do not know."
In the mirror, the shifting viewpoint presently showed the mountains from above; the searchlight circle was sweeping across a tumbled land of crags, plateaus and ravines—a white band of snow lying thick on the higher peaks. The lens was circling now; the turning, swaying viewpoint made the watchers dizzy.
Finally they saw it—a broken plane lying on its crumbled wing. The searchlight clung to it; the lens lowered until the image of the plane seemed more than a hundred feet below.
"Toroh's plane!" Rogers exclaimed.
There were figures moving about the plane, men and dogs. The men were dragging some apparatus from it, loading it onto a sled. One of the men was Toroh! The viewpoint was close enough now to distinguish him—alive!
But the flying lens had descended too close; the Noths were staring upward. A flash mounted from below; the crystal mirror turned a blinding white—then went black.
Toroh's thunderbolt had struck the flying lens and destroyed it.
George and Dee gazed from their hovering plane at the empty surface of the level rock face below them. Somewhere in time Azeela was lying there, unconscious, killed perhaps; the thought messages from her were stilled. Had Toroh gone on? Or had he stopped to try and find her?
They were anxious moments for George and Dee—moments that by George's watch stretched into an hour or more. They were both at the point of exhaustion. They had eaten a little—the plane was provisioned—but they had not slept throughout the trip. George made a close calculation. He knew the time-speed of Toroh's plane; he could estimate closely what Toroh's dials must have read at the instant Azeela jumped.
They found her at last, lying on the rock, unconscious. They stopped, carried her into the plane, and, before they started again, revived her. There was a heart stimulant among the plane's medicines; she drank it gratefully. She was not injured, though badly bruised by her fall. She had been knocked unconscious as she left the plane. The instant her body parted contact with its vibrations, blackness had come to her; she did not remember striking the rock.
George was jubilant. Had he been able to rest, he would have wanted to go on after Toroh. But he did not dare rest.
"We'll go on home," he decided. "You're a brave girl, Azeela." He smiled down at her as she lay stretched out on the leather seat. "I'll start slowly; you've had all the shock you can stand."
That same night in which the flying lens had been destroyed found George piloting his plane into the cavern at Anglese City. Fahn and Rogers were there to greet them. George handed down the girls, and descended with a flourish. In the excitement of his triumphant return, he forgot how tired and sleepy he was.
At the moment Loto was in another part of the cavern. He came running forward. He did not see Azeela at first.
"George!"
"Hello, Loto! Here we are. Were you worried?"
Then Loto saw Azeela.
"I brought her back to you," George said softly. "There she is, old man—all safe and sound."
But Loto did not hear him; his arms were around Azeela.
George turned to Dee. "You think he'd sacrifice her for the whole nation of the Anglese? I should say not!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A month went by in days and weeks of activity throughout the island. To the Scientists it was a time of unparalleled stress and anxiety. The government was in their hands for the first time in history, and a war—the first that anyone of that time-world had ever faced—was impending.
With Toroh's return his attack would not be long postponed. Fahn knew it. The radio proclaimed it to the Bas everywhere. An army must be trained at once; the Bas, Arans and Scientists were appealed to for volunteers.
It was Fahn's plan not to wait for the Noths to land on the island; but to anticipate the attack and send an army to meet it. The nation responded to the appeal. Conscription had been considered, but within a day the Bas had offered themselves in such numbers that it was obvious any form of conscription would be unnecessary.
The second day after the radio appeal for volunteers, the fact became evident that the Arans were refusing to go to war. In every village recruiting stations were listing the names of the young men of the Bas who presented themselves, but no Arans came. By the audible broadcasting Fahn called them severely to account; but still they remained in hiding. They were sought out. Cowardice, sullenness, declaration that their birthright made it unnecessary—they seemed to have a score of reasons, but the fact remained they would not willingly serve.
Scenes of violence were reported the next day. A Bas father, giving two sons to the coming war, had struck down an Aran youth whom he encountered; a party of Bas, angered into unlawfulness, had entered an Aran household in Orleen and beaten a group of Arans who were holding festivities; an Aran woman had been killed.
"Serves them right," George exclaimed indignantly. "I'd kill them all."
Fahn was perturbed, but then he shrugged. "We have far more young men from the Bas than we can use. I shall tell them to ignore the Arans. And in warfare such as this, an unwilling fighter is worse than none."
"Damned cowards," George muttered. "We'll save their hides for 'em, while they stay home and have parties."
The Scientist had caught the words. "Yes, George, because now that is easiest for us. I want no trouble here on the island. But afterward—when we have won—then we can deal with the Arans."
"I wouldn't have 'em on the island," George declared. It would have been an unfortunate Aran youth who encountered George during the days that followed.
The recruiting, hand in hand with the manufacturing activities of the cavern, went steadily on. In every principal village the Bas youths were registered and drilled, as yet without weapons. Officered by older men of the Bas, they waited for the equipment and orders to come to them from Anglese City.
The information Fahn had regarding Toroh and his Noth army was vague, unsatisfactory; its very meagerness seemed to forecast disaster. Somewhere beyond the mountains the Noths were gathering along the Atlantic Coast. Hordes of men and fighting dogs were coming southward. But their scientific weapons were practically unknown. The thunderbolt globes—of what power Fahn could not say—were all that he was positive they possessed.
It was Toroh's trip back into time that seemed to hold the greatest menace. He had secured some apparatus. What was it? Something invincible, perhaps; something so completely different from anything with which the Anglese were familiar that they could not hope to cope with it.
There were no answers to these questions.
The flying lens—the only one the Anglese possessed—had been destroyed. Others were now being hastily constructed, and with them Fahn intended to reconnoiter extensively over the Noth territory. The information thus attained would be immensely valuable.
The principle of this radio-controlled flying platform, as Fahn had said, was newly invented. It was not yet wholly practical. The dais at the Festival was the first crude model; the flying lens was the second. It had been so successful a model for a beginning that Fahn was encouraged to use it with a broader scope. Larger platforms were now being built, and thunderbolt projectors were to be mounted on them—projectors with an effective radius of a thousand feet. A number of these flying platforms would constitute a mechanical army. Controlled by radios whose operators stayed safely at home, it could be sent forth to battle—with the human army to follow behind it.
The perfecting of the electric fabric repulsive to the earth—an invention revived out of the past and brought to practicability only within the last few months—was the basis of the equipment for the Anglese army now being mobilized. It was kept secret until the last moment.
Two weeks after George's return, the first flying organization was equipped. Two hundred young men selected from the ranks of the Scientists began drilling secretly at night in an open space near Anglese City. Among them were George and Loto. For the men from our time-world, the experience was the most extraordinary they had ever undergone. The fabric was like thin black gauze. A loose suit of it encased each man, bound tightly at his wrists, throat and ankles. About his waist was strapped a broad, cloth belt with several pockets in which to carry various weapons. There was some sort of a battery attached to the belt, from which a current was turned into the gauze suit.
One of Fahns assistants came over to George and adjusted the current to his normal weight, while George stood eyeing the man fearsomely. He could feel the current as it was turned on. It was not unpleasant; it made him tingle all over.
In another moment George was ready. Thin cloth slippers were on his feet; by the pressure against the soles he felt as though he weighed not more than five pounds. Involuntarily, he clutched at Loto, who stood beside him. He felt that a breath of wind would blow him away.
"Let go," Loto grinned. "Make a leap, George."
Obediently George leaped gingerly into the air. He floated upward, turned over, arms and legs flying, and floated downward, landing gently on his face in the sand. But after a few trials he could hold his balance; the air seemed fluid, like water. With wings fastened to his arms and legs, he could have swum through it.
He suggested that to Loto. "Why, with practice, a man could swim through the air, darting about like a fish through water."
Loto laughed. "You'd make a fine inventor, George. That probably was the first crude way it was used. But later they developed a much better way of propulsion, and we have revived it now."
The motive power consisted of a single metal cylinder to be held in the left hand—an apparatus which in weight and shape was not unlike an ordinary flashlight. As George understood its fundamental principle, the thing altered the density of the air in whatever direction it was pointed.
Loto tried to explain it with as few technical words as he could. A spreading, invisible ray from the cylinder penetrated the air for a distance of some ten feet. It separated the molecules of the air, drove them apart. Its action was incredibly swift.
"Well?" demanded George.
"The atmosphere exerts a pressure here of some sixteen pounds to the square inch," Loto said. "The air immediately in advance of this cylinder mouth is almost instantly thinned out. The ray charges the molecules of air and makes them slightly repellent. The result is, George, that immediately in advance of your body the atmospheric pressure is somewhat lessened. Thus, your body moves forward, pushed by the air pressure from behind."
The cylinder had a sliding lever by which its ray was turned on or off. George held it over his head and moved the lever. His body left the ground and shot straight up at increasing speed. There was no rush of wind toward him; instead the air from below seemed to be wafting him upward.
The ground was dropping away. Fifty feet! A hundred feet! Panic struck George; all he could think of to do was shut off the cylinder power. At once he floated down, turning over helplessly. He landed quite gently, several hundred feet from where he had started, with Loto running there to meet him, laughing at his discomfiture.
You couldn't very well get hurt, that was the beauty of the thing. George plunged enthusiastically into learning how to handle himself in the air.
With a week this organization of two hundred Scientist young men were fairly expert with the new flying apparatus. There were several thousand Bas youths now registered in different parts of the island; but the suits and air cylinders for them were not ready. Finally, another hundred were released, and at Anglese City, Mogruud, the Bas leader, and a hundred selected Bas young men began learning to use them.
In spite of the indignant protests of Loto and George, both Fahn's daughters urged that they be allowed to try the apparatus, and Fahn gave his permission.
"I have no sons to give," he said quietly. "And this warfare is of skill, not strength or endurance. If my girls can help their country, it is their duty—and mine—to make the sacrifice."
With this precedent, other Scientist girls—several at Orleen, and twenty at Anglese City—enthusiastically volunteered. Without exception, the girls proved superior to the men. The new art demanded a deft agility, a quickness of thought and movement, which seemed to come to the girls more naturally.
Within a few days, Azeela and Dee could dart through the air with incredible dexterity. The cylinder held in the left hand could be pointed quickly in any direction and the body would be drawn that way. Dee, especially, became proficient. She could dart upward, turn, come swooping down head-first or with slow somersaults, graceful as a dancer, to right herself a few feet above the ground and land on tiptoe.
The result of the girls' proficiency was that they were organized into a separate squad. There were twenty-eight girls in all; thirteen commanded by Azeela, and thirteen by Dee.
During all this time, the Arans had remained in seclusion, keeping off the streets as much as possible. The Bas, drilling without weapons, were eager to be equipped. The king and his council confined themselves to the palace at Anglese City.
There were no boats on the island except crude sailing canoes. A few of the newly equipped flying corps went northward; but Fahn, anticipating the completion of other flying lenses, ordered them not to cross the channel. In the cavern, day and night, operators watched the mirrors, flashing the viewpoints from every coast tower on the island, to guard against a surprise attack.
A month had passed since George's return in the plane. He had suggested several times that the plane might be used in the war. But Rogers refused this. George had exhausted the proton current to the point where there was barely enough left for a return to Roger's time-world. And the plane in itself, as a means of flying through space, would have been of little value in this warfare.
The flying discs, mounted with observing lenses and thunderbolt projectors, were now ready. They were sent out one night, controlled from the cavern.
It was the first aggressive act of the war; a mechanical army sweeping northward to attack the enemy.
In the cavern room, Fahn and his friends sat watching the mirrors, which showed the scene from the viewpoint of the flying mechanisms.
The discs swept northward, following the coastline. Beyond the mountains, far ahead, loomed a great encampment close to the shore, dim and vague in the moonlight. In a few minutes the mechanisms would be there.
Suddenly, one of the mirrors in operation went black. In the others, the scene showed that Toroh was sending up some opposing mechanisms. Dots of silver were mounting from the encampment. They floated slowly upward, but they seemed to seek out the Anglese flying platforms, pursuing them as though with human intelligence.
One by one the mirrors were going black, as the flying lenses were being destroyed. In a moment only one was left. It was almost over Toroh's encampment—almost in range where it could have discharged its bolt.
In the mirrored scene, a white dot was growing as it came closer to the lens. Its image grew; it resolved itself from a dot, so what Fahn saw was a thin, gleaming disc. It looked as though it might be whirling. The thing turned, pursued the lens, overtook it—the last mirror went dark.
The operators, greatly upset, left their instruments and gathered around Fahn. Toroh had sent up some unknown mechanisms; the flying thunderbolt platforms had crashed to the ground before any of them had come within range of the enemy.
It was during this same night that Toroh first used his audible broadcasting beams. Fahn's audible voices in the air had constantly been encouraging his people. Now, abruptly, the air burst forth with other voices. Somewhere in the mountains across the channel, Toroh had erected a broadcasting station. He was sending threats through the air to the Anglese!
It was a surprise, and it disturbed Fahn greatly. Everywhere on the island aerial voices of the enemy were leering, threatening, boasting of the coming triumph of the Noths. Would the Bas be intimidated? It might be disastrous; with the defeat of the flying discs, Fahn was depending more than ever now upon the Bas army.
All that night and next day, the sender from the cavern sent forth its cheering messages.
By the following noon information began coming to Anglese City that the Bas were apparently not alarmed. They were jeering back at Toroh's aerial voices; but they were demanding vigorously that the Scientists give them weapons.
"In a week we shall be ready," Fahn told Rogers. "Five thousand air-pressure cylinders are now in the last process of manufacture. The other weapons are ready. One week more is all we need."
Amid Toroh's aerial threats that day had come the reiterated, triumphant statement that in two weeks more his attack would come. Two weeks still! It was more than Fahn had hoped for.
The statement was Toroh's trickery. Eighteen hours later—the next morning at dawn—a member of the aerial patrol over the channel returned hurriedly to Anglese City with the news that Toroh's expedition had started by water. Huge barges were coming down the coast, pulled by the giant dogs swimming before them—barges crowded with men and dogs and apparatus.
That morning was one of almost complete chaos. The invaders would enter the channel near Anglese City. The thunderbolt projectors which had been distributed thinly about the coast were rushed eastward and concentrated at the channel-mouth. There was no time now to equip the main Bas army. The attack would have to be repelled by the coast defense, and by the small aerial army already formed: one hundred Bas led by Mogruud; two hundred Scientists with whom Loto and George were to serve, and the twenty-six Scientist girls, led by Azeela and Dee.
That morning the aerial voices ordered every able-bodied Bas man on the island to come toward Anglese City with every dog that could be procured. If the invaders landed, the dogs could best oppose them.
It was at this juncture that the king announced the change of his royal capital to Orleen. The royal family, the councilors, their retainers—all fled in their dog carriages from Anglese City. Orleen, much further down the channel, would be safe. News of the king's action spread over the island. Arans from everywhere fled after him, huddling in Orleen.
In the confusion of those hours, the contempt for the Arans passed almost without comment. Orleen was the safest place, and the Bas there—men and women both—scornful of remaining among the cowards, came eastward.
By noon the flying army was fully accoutered and waiting in a field near Anglese City. Loto, equipped to remain in constant telephonic communication with Fahn, was virtually the leader. George, with his several weapons in his belt, stood beside Loto. Mogruud had his hundred Bas around him. The girls were in two small groups apart.
At a signal from Fahn, the little army rose swiftly into the sunlit sky. The watching throng was stricken silent with awe. The figures in the air arranged themselves in a broad arc, with the officers in front, and then swept forward, over the channel toward the mountains and the distant sea.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The palm-dotted island fell silently away. Ahead lay the blue channel; to the right the open sea. To George the flight—the first of any duration he had taken—was exhilarating. It was soundless; the absence of any rush of air against him made it totally unlike flying in a plane. He seemed to be wafting forward as though the air were his native element.
Loto was just ahead of him. Behind him came the army, maintaining its arc-like formation. A little in front, and at a slightly lower level, were the two squads of girls. They were all slim, graceful creatures, most of them under twenty. The black gauze—loose trousers and blouse—showed the white of their limbs beneath. Their heads were bound in deep-red rubber cloth, tight over the forehead and tied in back with flowing ends. With cylinders extended from the left hand they slid gracefully forward through the air.
Though George felt no rush of air, he found he could not talk to Loto, even though no more than twenty feet separated them. The rushing wind between them tore away the words.
Soon they were over the channel. The girls were drifting much lower now. Loto darted down a few feet; then as though he had changed his mind, he came up again. He reached for a mouthpiece that dangled under his chin and fitted it to his lips. His voice, magnified to a stentorian roar, rolled out.
"Azeela! Dee! Come higher! You must not go so low!"
Obediently the two girls rose to the higher level, their little squads following them. When they were over the mouth of the channel, George saw Toroh's barges—tiny dark smudges on the water some miles up the coast and a mile or so off shore. His heart leaped, began pounding in spite of his efforts to quiet it.
Following Loto he swept diagonally upward and forward. Presently he could count six barges. They were tremendous things, crowded with men and dogs and mechanical apparatus. Spread over each was a huge caging of flashing silver metal. One barge was some distance in the lead; the others straggled out irregularly behind it for about a mile. All the Noth vessels were being drawn slowly through the water by ranks of harnessed dogs.
Loto momentarily shut off his cylinder; his speed was slackening. George overtook him, put an arm on his shoulder. The nearest of the barges was now less than a mile ahead.
An upward flash from the leading barge was followed in a few seconds by a crack of thunder. The bolt dissipated harmlessly into the air. But obviously it was powerful, with an effective range of two thousand feet—twice that of the Anglese defense.
Toroh's plan now became apparent. He would batter the Anglese coast projectors while still beyond reach of them, and then make his landing. The cages over the barges were for protection from the smaller thunderbolts of the attacking aerial army.
George knew the cages were only partially effective. A bolt was difficult to aim, but it did queer things when it struck. From a short distance—a hundred feet or less—the barges could be set on fire and sunk. Their thin metal hulls were not protected. They could be pierced. The wooden super-structure could be fired; the swimming dogs struck and killed.
In hurried whispers Loto was constantly talking with Fahn back in the cavern. The Scientist's orders he repeated with his electrically magnified voice that could be heard easily by every one of the little aerial army.
For a time they circled about, above the barges, but keeping well beyond the two-thousand foot range. Against the blue of the sky their figures must have shown plainly to the Noths. Occasionally a bolt would flash up, but they were harmless at that distance. And the barges pushed steadily forward.
At last Fahn decided the moment for attack had arrived. Loto repeated the order. George's division and Mogruud's separated from the rest. One hundred turned seaward, the others toward land. They dropped swiftly; straight down, like divers, heavily laden with lead, dropping through water. And then a darting, twisting swarm of insects—from every side at once they attacked the leading barge.
In the depths of the cavern at Anglese City, Fahn sat in his room of mirrors. A metal band about his head held a receiver to his ear. A black mouthpiece hung against his chest and by lowering his head he could bring his lips to it. Rogers was at his side. The mirrors in every part of the room were lighted, giving the viewpoints of the coast towers near the mouth of the channel. In several of the mirrored scenes, over the distant water and in the air, black specks were visible; the enemy and Fahn's army above them.
But these were not the vital crystal mirrors. A small one—a foot square perhaps—stood on the table before Fahn. He and Rogers were gazing into it intently. The mirror was connected with a tiny lens strapped to Loto's forehead; it gave Loto's viewpoint of the battle, showed the scene exactly as Loto saw it.
Fahn was silent; a stern, anxious old man, with all his science around him, sitting in seclusion to direct this warfare upon which the fate of his people depended. Occasionally he would murmur something to Rogers, and the other man would speak into a mouthpiece—an order for the operator of the broadcasted aerial voices, controlled from another part of the cavern. Then throughout the island, cheering words to the Bas would resound, news of the progress of the battle. But Fahn's gaze never wavered from the little mirror.
George's and Mogruud's divisions descended upon the leading barge. The barge spat forth its bolts, but it could discharge only one or two against a hundred of the tiny ones from its attackers. Looking down, from Loto's viewpoint overhead, the barge was assailed on every side by the pencils of electrical flame. Figures dropped, inert, into the water; others, wounded, wavered upward. The wire cage over the barge was sizzling and crackling; the swimming dogs, a dozen or more of them, crumpled in the water and were dragged forward in their harness by the others.
The engagement had lasted no more than a minute when the air about the barge was suddenly plunged into blackness. Everything down there was blotted out—a patch of solid ink on the sea. The Noth vessel had exploded a bomb whose etheric vibration absorbed all light over a radius of five hundred feet.
Fahn smiled grimly. The darkness there would pass presently. His own leaders, Loto, George, Mogruud and the two girls, had the same equipment. Each of them could discharge such a bomb; a puff of darkness, cloaking everything around them in temporary invisibility.
Fahn heard his own orders roared by Loto. The attacking figures came up. But there were not two hundred of them now: about twenty lay down there in the water; a dozen more were wounded; a few were moving slowly homeward through the air.
The darkness still hung around the attacked Noth vessel. But it was thinning out; now the vague outlines of the barge could be seen. Within a minute the dark patch was gone. One end of the barge was blazing, but the Noths were extinguishing the flames. Other figures were cutting loose the dead dogs in the water, while new dogs were leaping overboard to take their places.
The attacked barge presently moved onward; slowly, inexorably, they were all coming down the coast. They were no more than a mile or two now from the estuary of the channel-mouth.
Three times more Fahn ordered a division down at the same barge. The Noth tactics were repeated. The barge discharged a few of its bolts and then enveloped itself in blackness—an absence of light that even the thunderbolts could not illumine.
These brief engagements were largely a matter of individual action. Warfare was new to the Anglese, but they were learning. The huge bolts from the barge could not parallel the water level for long; inevitably they turned downward to discharge themselves. Close to the water the attackers were comparatively safe.
When the Anglese came up after these attacks and reformed themselves in orderly array, there were only ten more of their number missing. But it was fifty in all, and a score of wounded.
The attacked barge was blazing end to end. Its crowded deck was a turmoil of figures. They were plunging overboard—men and dogs—to avoid the flames. In a moment the barge tilted upward at its stern. Its torn bow was admitting the water; it slid downward, hissing, and disappeared beneath the surface. Figures bobbed up from the swirl, inert, charred figures; others among them, still alive, swam about in aimless confusion.
One barge! But there were five more. And these others had all pushed forward until now they were almost down to the channel. Fahn realized that there were five hundred Noths and as many dogs crowded into each of them. They could take to the water while they were still beyond range of his coast projectors and come forward individually, each man mounted upon his swimming dog. The coast defense could strike down no more than a few of them if they came in that fashion. Twenty-five hundred men and their giant brutes, landing on the island.
Azeela and Dee were hovering close to Loto; they were asking their father's permission to try a new plan. The battle could not be maintained as it was going; the hand thunderbolt globes held but ten charges each, and the equipment of each individual was only three globes. A third of the thunderbolts were already exhausted in sinking one barge.
Fahn's expression did not change; only the grip of his fingers as he clenched them and the rising muscles under his thin cheeks betokened his emotion. His voice was steady, grim as always, when he ordered his daughters to their desperate venture.
Azeela and Dee, with their twenty-six comrades, selected the barge that had replaced the leader. In a closely knit group they hovered above it. Thunderbolts shot up, but could not reach them. The girls aimed a pure-white beam of light downward—twenty-six tiny rays blending into one. Rogers, bending over Fahn to gaze into the little mirror, was amazed. Unlike any beam of light he had ever seen, this one was curved; It descended in a slightly bent bow, ending at the barge.
Fahn whispered a swift explanation to Rogers. To the Noths, looking upward along the beam, it would not appear curved, but straight. The figures of the girls, by an optical illusion, would be seen, not where they actually were, but to one side.
The girls held their curved ray steady. And plunging down the beam, following its slightly curved path, were the figures of Azeela and Dee.
The Noths saw them coming; a dozen bolts leaped into the air, one upon the other, but they flashed harmlessly to one side of their mark.
Within twenty seconds the two girls were close to the barge; yellow-red spurts of flame leaped from their weapons—flame that could be hurled thirty feet but no farther. It enveloped the barge with licking, seething, burning liquid gases that withered everything they touched. A puff of darkness, which the retreating girls had left behind them, blotted out the scene. An instant later Azeela and Dee emerged from the darkness, safe. The shaft of light from the girls above was extinguished as the two rose to join them.
When light shone again around the barge, it was sinking. Soon the swirling water held nothing but black, twisted figures.
The maneuver could not be repeated successfully. From the other barges the Noths would have seen the curved beam, understood it and made allowances for it. Azeela and Dee, triumphant and flushed with their success, pleaded to try it again, but Fahn would not let them.
The afternoon was waning; the western sky was red and overhead clouds were gathering. And then Fahn ordered a general attack on all the barges.
The sun had set; the twilight deepened into night—a night of flashing lights, crackling, artificial thunder, spurts of lurid flame and the hissing of fire against water. At intervals, rockets came up; bursting, they cast a blue-white glare that for the space of a minute clearly outlined the menacing, darting figures for the Noths.
The atmospheric disturbance of the past hours suddenly brought forth an electrical storm. Nature, more powerful than man, shot forth her own bolts to add to the din. They were, in character, very different from the harnessed, man-made lightning; forked, jagged, crackling with their nearness, they leaped downward out of the low-hanging clouds.
The storm was as brief as it was severe. It swept away and the moon rose, blood-red, casting its lurid light over the water.
Another Noth vessel had been sunk. There were only three barges left afloat, and they were in distress. Many of their swimming dogs lay dead in harness. Aboard all three of them, figures were fighting the flames. They clustered in a group near the center of the channel.
Loto had withdrawn his forces, reduced now to half their original number. With ammunition almost exhausted, they hovered out of range above their adversaries. The wounded were still straggling back through the air; a few of them had already arrived at the cavern.
Again Fahn ordered his army down. It would be the last attempt.
In the cavern room, Fahn had not moved from his seat for hours. Often he could not see the battle plainly, for Loto, disobeying orders, had many times cast himself into the thick of it.
But now Loto was aloft; by the moonlight and the glare of the rockets and bombs, Fahn saw that another Noth vessel had appeared—a very small barge. It was close to shore, coming swiftly forward and little objects of gleaming silver were mounting from it. One after the other they came sailing up.
Fahn rasped an order; Loto's voice roared it out. The men and girls who were descending to the attack halted, circling about, wondering what had happened.
The first of the white objects came sailing slowly horizontally across the channel. It seemed to be a whirling white disc some foot or two in diameter.
Loto was still some distance away from it when a group of girls passed between him and the disc. The thing seemed to turn toward them. One of the girls became confused; it struck her and she fell. The disc, its rotation halted, fell also. Loto saw then what it was: broad, thin, crossed blades of steel, inclined to each other like the blades of a propeller. It had risen up and sustained itself in the air by rotation. Loto remembered the defeat of the flying thunderbolt platforms which Fahn had sent northward to Toroh's encampment. These whirling knives were what had destroyed them!
The newly arrived barge was now sending up, in every direction, a slow but steady stream of the whirling knives. They seemed so easy to avoid that the aerial army at first paid them little heed. Loto's warning from Fahn rang out, but it came almost too late. The knives sought out the figures in the air. They began falling—cut, mangled by the whirling blades. There was confusion. The army mounted higher, but other knives had been sent straight upward and were floating down. Uncannily, they seemed to single out their victims.
Fahn understood now. This was the weapon Toroh had procured from that time-world of the past. These whirling knives were strangely, powerfully magnetized; they followed the human bodies passing near them, seeking contact.
The Scientist leader had ordered his fighters to the sea level; the knives, as they came lower, seemed to have spent themselves. They could be avoided. But nearly forty of the Anglese had met death before the lesson was learned.
The three larger barges were again advancing toward the Anglese coast. Without warning, without orders from Fahn, the little remnant of girls led by Azeela and Dee, darted at them. It was a movement, not foolhardy, but well and swiftly planned. The girls, holding close to the surface, got themselves between two of the barges. The Noths could not fire, for they would have struck each other. A puff of inky darkness spread over the ships, and out of it, at close range, jets of fire sprang at the Noths; then the girls came back. One of the Noth vessels was a mass of flames; the other two wavered—and began retreating.
For a moment there was silence and darkness, lighted only by the moon and the flickering light from the blazing barge. The whirling blades were no longer being launched; the Anglese were again poised in the air.
Fahn had ordered that the small barge be attacked when, abruptly, a low hum sounded from it. George and Loto were hovering together at the moment; the barge was some five hundred feet below them and slightly off to one side. There didn't seem to be any dogs on it; only a few men under its wire cage, and a single large piece of apparatus.
The hum grew louder, more intense, as though some gigantic dynamo had been set into motion.
"What's that?" George demanded.
But Loto did not know.
Mogruud, with the remains of his division, was in the air half a mile away. He was on the other side of the small barge; his men, moving in scattered groups, began passing over it.
The hum was rising in pitch, up the scale until it became a shrill electrical scream. Mogruud's men wavered—struggled as though to avoid being pulled downward.
Then Loto realized that it must be the rest of the apparatus Toroh had secured out of the past—a giant electromagnet of some unknown variety. It was pulling at every figure in the air, drawing them irresistibly toward it.
Loto and George could feel the pull; invisible fingers were snatching at them. The girls near at hand were fighting against it. Mogruud was moving forward with an effort, like a swimmer struggling with the clutch of an undertow. Several of his men, closer to the barge, had been drawn to it, flattened helplessly against its wire caging. Fire was leaping through their bodies...they were electrocuted.
In the cavern Fahn sat tense, impotent. He could hear, as plainly as though he were out there over the sea, the scream of that uncanny thing that was reaching out its invisible electrical fingers to gather in its victims.
At his side, for the past hour, Rogers had been operating the larger mirrors, flashing into them scenes from the various towers along the coast. Now Fahn heard him give a sharp, horrified exclamation.
Rogers was staring at a mirrored scene from a coast tower near Orleen: moonlight, purple, starry sky and the deep purple of the channel; to one side, the dim outlines of the Orleen houses. And from the channel off Orleen, lights were flashing; a bomb burst and its glare shone on crowded barges close inshore! One of them, already at the beach, was disgorging its men and brutes!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Once again, Toroh's trickery was disclosed. To Fahn, the tactics of the Noths were now understandable. The Noth attack on Anglese City, at which Fahn had hurled all his armed forces, had been no more than a ruse to cover up Toroh's main offensive at Orleen.
Toroh's orders, doubtless, had been to prolong the engagement until, under cover of night, his main forces could effect their landing at the other end of the island. This small barge with the magnet had probably been ordered to slip by, hugging the north shore of the channel, and proceed to Orleen. But its commander had, at what he must have considered a decisive moment, used it against the remnant of the little aerial army.
Toroh's landing at Orleen was taking place; the channel expedition had served its purpose. The two remaining barges off Anglese City were in full retreat toward the open sea. The smaller barge, with its screaming magnet, was heading swiftly down the channel toward Orleen. The figures in the air were struggling against its pull. Some were losing, being hurled forward with control of themselves lost; others were forcing their way down to the water-level where the attraction seemed less. Still others had succeeded in escaping upward beyond its range. They circled high overhead, seeking some way of helping their unfortunate comrades.
The double disaster was more than Fahn could cope with, or even watch closely in the two mirrors. Orleen lay on a peninsula some ten miles broad, with water on three sides of the city. The Noths were landing, spreading around the shores; across the land from shore to shore they were massed, but as yet they had not entered the city. Thousands of Arans were there—the king and his royal family—penned like rats in a trap. And there was only the small cavern with its meager garrison of Scientists to defend them.
George found himself near the outer edge of the magnetic attraction. He could see the figures in the air nearer the barge struggling to escape from it. He did not know where Loto was, or Azeela or Dee. He saw Mogruud, with fifteen or twenty of the Bas about him. They were passing swiftly below.
George wondered what he should do. The two larger barges were withdrawing. Some of the aerial figures were following them, and George started moving that way. The figures were attacking the barges from down near the surface of the water. Mogruud and his men were there now. George hastened.
This last attack of the Anglese was one of desperate fury. George could see the flash of the bolts close to the water. One of the barges must have fired through its own darkness and struck its mate. As the blackness cleared, George saw that both the Noth vessels were blazing. One of them sank a moment later; from the flames on the other, figures were plunging into the water.
The Anglese—one of them mounting—cast loose a light-bomb. In the brilliant glare, the aerial figures were darting about over the surface of the water, seeking out the Noth men and dogs who were swimming toward the island and striking them with the little thunderbolts, or with spurts of yellow-red flame at closer range. George arrived to join them. It was ghastly but necessary work. He used his weapons until they were exhausted.
The battle was won—all but the giant magnet. In the distance its blood-curdling scream still sounded.
And then George saw Dee. She had been several thousand feet up, flying with another girl, when the magnet was first put into operation. They were not close enough to feel its pull. A whirling knife had approached them; struck the other girl, killed her. It was spent, but a corner of it had knocked Dee's motor-cylinder from her hand. She had begun floating down. Ever since, she had been trying to swim through the air; with arms and legs kicking, she had fought to sustain herself.
She was almost at the surface when George saw her struggling, ineffectually, like a swimmer exhausted. He darted to her and gathered her in his arms. His cylinder drew them both upward.
"Dee," he whispered. "My little Dee You're safe!"
Loto had dropped close to the surface. The magnet was pulling him, but with his cylinder held against it, he could make headway. By now the magnet had done most of its work; those in the air had either succumbed or escaped beyond range.
To one side, Loto could see the attack on the other two barges. Fahn's voice in his ear told him of the landing at Orleen. The Scientist ordered them all back. They were needed at Orleen; they must return.
But the magnetic barge was heading down the channel. It would be used at Orleen. It must be stopped—destroyed now. Loto disobeyed Fahn. He headed for the little barge.
It was a plunge of no more than a few minutes. Soon Loto was well within the field of magnetism; he could not withdraw now. He tried to think clearly. Those others of the Anglese who had met this death had lost control of themselves in the air. They had plunged forward, struggling, whirling so that they had not been able to use their weapons.
Loto had no thunderbolts left. His only weapon was the flaming liquid gas which he could project some fifty feet.
Just above the surface, head first, like an arrow, he slid forward through the air. He did not fight against the magnet; he used his cylinder only to keep himself from turning sidewise.
He was conscious of the dark outlines of the barge rushing up at him. He fired his jet of flame; though he did not know it then, he had fired too soon. The flames fell short. A downward thrust of his cylinder power forced him upward. He barely missed the wire caging as his body shot over it, past it.
The magnet's scream was deafening. The Noths on the barge had fired a small thunderbolt between the wires, but had missed the swiftly passing mark.
Loto's momentum carried him a hundred feet or more beyond the barge. The magnet stopped him, drew him swiftly back. He was turning over now; he had lost control of himself. The sea, the sky, the approaching barge were mingled in whirling confusion. He knew he could never escape; he must strike the magnet with his flame, this time or never. A moment more and he would be electrocuted against the cage.
A tiny bolt cracked past him. He turned over again, righted himself momentarily, and fired. The electrical scream died into abrupt silence; the flames had caught the magnet, burned out its coils.
Released suddenly, Loto's body shot upward with the pull of his cylinder. The cage, with flames spreading under it, dropped away beneath him.
He righted himself, and at a distance of about three hundred feet, hung poised in the air. The flames spread over the barge; a few Noth figures plunged frantically into the water.
Loto mounted upward to join his comrades. Barely seventy-five of the original three hundred and twenty-eight, were left. Ten of them were girls. Loto found Azeela safe. George still carried Dee in his arms.
The flames from the burning barges died out; the silent moonlit channel was strewn with floating bodies. It seemed almost futile to search for their wounded, but they descended, and for a time moved about near the surface. They found two still alive—one burned, the other, a girl, mangled by a flying knife.
Silently, with their burdens, they took their way back through the air to the cavern.
It was a night of confusion. The Noths were clustered around Orleen, waiting for the dawn before they entered the city. They were still coming across the channel on swimming dogs. All night they came. The puny garrison at the Orleen cavern was powerless to stop them. It exhausted its bolts and began sending out calls for help.
The Bas around Anglese City were mobilizing with their dogs. Hastily, Fahn equipped them with weapons—hand thunderbolts and flame projectors. An hour-and-a-half before dawn, they were ready to start their almost hopeless attempt to stem the horde of invaders who now held the entire western end of the island.
The little rag-end of the aerial army that returned from the battle was exhausted, but in a few hours, it too, was ready to start.
Fahn, with his two daughters, and Rogers, Loto and George, took the Frazia plane. On its platform Fahn mounted a single projector, the most powerful he possessed.
They started an hour before dawn—silent as they gazed down at the island of palms that was passing beneath them. They overtook their Bas army and left it behind them. In the air, back over Anglese City, tiny specks showed that the aerial army was starting. Above the hum of the Frazia motors they hear the aerial voices of Anglese City telling the Bas peasants who lived between the two cities to come eastward. They were obeying; little groups of refugees—old men, women and children—were moving along all the roads. In the sky ahead, occasional flashes shot up from Orleen.
"The Arans went there to avoid the deluge," Rogers said suddenly, and his laugh was grim.
No one answered him.
Behind them the eastern sky was brightening. Loto was piloting the plane, with Rogers beside him. The daylight grew, began reddening.
"Look, Father, there's Orleen!"
The second largest city on the island, Orleen lay in a hollow, with twin peaks close behind it, the mouth of the channel and the gulf in front and to the sides. It was an Aran city, more beautiful even than the capital.
The plane, flying high, was circling. Loto's gaze went to the dawn. The sun came up a huge, distorted ball of crimson fire, with lines of flame radiating from it to the zenith. A dark mass of rain cloud, hanging low above Orleen, lost its blackness as it soaked up the crimson light. The sky, even to the western horizon, was steeped in blood; the water reflected it; the air itself seemed to hold it suspended.
"The day of deluge," murmured Loto. "The blood that will be spilled today—"
As though in answer to his words, the clouds above Orleen began spilling rain. And as the water fell, it caught the crimson sunlight—myriad drops of blood falling upon the Aran city.
The storm was transitory the rain cloud swept past, but the blood in the sky remained.
In the hours that had passed since the plane left Anglese City, the Noths had occupied Orleen. Its cavern was taken. The Noth men and dogs stood in solid ranks around the mountain base; the beaches were black with them. They were still coming across the channel—riders mounted upon swimming dogs, an occasional barge.
There were no sounds of thunderbolts in the city, no flashes. But as the plane descended, human sounds were heard—faint screams. And the city streets were in confusion.
Fahn was staring down into the city through lenses mounted in short black tubes. He murmured something that his companions did not catch. His face was white and set; he was struggling to hold his composure.
"Descend, Loto. They are not armed with thunderbolts; those are all with Toroh and his men in the cavern."
The plane glided down, circling low above the city. The scene of carnage there became a series of brief, fragmentary pictures. Above the drone of the Frazia motors, they could hear the snarling of fighting dogs, the screams of men and women, the shrill treble of children—human screams of agony as the fangs of the brutes tore at them.
The plane passed low above a city street, following its length to the blue water that lapped the white sand at its end. The street was full of dogs. A Noth rider—sinister, animal-like, with his black-bound head and his naked torso covered with black hair—arrived at a silent white house, with its white columns, splashing fountain, and vivid trellised flowers. The Noth dismounted, rushed into the house. He came out dragging an Aran woman—flung her white body to the eager, snarling brute. At the beach, hundreds of terrified Arans sprang into the water; the dogs followed them, pulled them under, released them at last, and the surf flung their mangled bodies up on the sand.
There was a public square where a hundred or more Arans had gathered. The dogs charged them, tore at them, flung them into the air—fought over their broken bodies long after life had gone.
The dogs spread to every corner of the city. A child climbed a pergola—a little Aran boy, white skinned, with long golden curls and a plump baby face. The dogs could not reach him; a Noth man climbed up, pulled him down.
Loto had given the Frazia controls to his father. With a small thunderbolt globe at his belt he went to the platform outside the cabin. Presently he found Azeela beside him. Her arm was around him; together they clung to their insecure footing, watching the scenes below as the plane made its swift circle over the city.
What could Fahn do? The thunderbolt projector, here on the platform, could kill a few Noths, a few dogs here and there. But of what avail would that be among these hordes? The Orleen Cavern? Could they attack that? Toroh was probably there in the cavern. If they could kill him, these Noth barbarians, without a leader...
Confused and sick from what he was seeing, Loto tried to force Azeela into the cabin, but the white lipped girl would not go. The plane approached a house where an Aran woman crouched on the roof top with two little girls huddled at her feet. A Noth appeared from below, dashed at them across the roof. Beneath the eaves a dozen dogs stood with bared, drippings fangs pointed upward.
The plane was almost over the house. Loto pointed his globe downward, pressed its lever. There was a flash, a miniature crack of thunder and the globe recoiled in his hand. On the roof top the Noth man and the Aran woman and her children lay dead. The woman's white robe was blackened, the children's bodies were burned, shriveled; a cornice of the building was ripped off and the woodwork was blazing.
It was so useless! Loto flung the globe from him, loathing it for having killed that woman and her little girls. He drew Azeela back with him into the cabin.
The king's palace in Orleen stood near the waterfront, in the midst of broad, magnificent gardens. A mob of Noths surged around it, into the lower doors, on the balconies and roof top. As the plane passed overhead, its occupants caught a fleeting glimpse of the queen and her children, the girl wives of the king and the king himself—in the face of death with petty barriers at last broken down—all huddled together in a corner of the roof. The Noths rushed at them, broad, heavy swords flashing.
The plane swept past.
The twin peaks of Orleen stood six hundred feet apart, just behind the city. The one that housed the cavern had a broad, circular base, with a ragged, volcanic looking cone above. The other peak was considerably higher; it looked down upon its fellow.
Fahn had directed Rogers to fly the plane to the higher of the peaks. The Scientist had hardly spoken. He was pale, grim as ever, but his gaze, when he looked upon his daughters held a curious softness. What were his plans. What were they going to do? George asked the questions, but Fahn ignored them.
The little aerial army approaching from Anglese City was now in sight. Fahn radioed them to move back, descend, and stop the Bas army and its dogs. All of them were to return to the capital.
The plane landed on a small level rock near the summit of the higher peak. On top of the cavern, six hundred feet away, a solitary male figure stood. The blood light of the sunrise fell full upon it. Toroh! He was standing there, regarding the city.
Fahn leaped to the projector, but Toroh had disappeared.
"Hurry!" exclaimed the Scientist. He still would not let them question him. He unlashed the projector and they helped him lower it to the ground. He leaped down after it, adjusting it, swinging it to bear down upon the lower peak.
"We must hurry," he repeated. He was back on the cabin platform. "They will be out of the cavern, firing upon us."
The Noths down there were gazing up at the plane; others were now pouring out of the cavern entrance.
Fahn's projector was trained on the crater of the lower mountain. From this greater height its depths were visible.
In the cabin of the plane the Scientist's arms went around his daughters. "Good-by, my girls—for a little time," he whispered in their own tongue.
They were frightened; suddenly Dee was crying. But he pushed them from him. He would attack the cavern; they must all stay in the plane—rise high—very high.
Something in the man's look, the command in his voice, struck them all silent. They obeyed. He climbed down to the rock. The plane mounted swiftly into the air.
The sun was above the eastern horizon; the sky was an inverted bowl of blood. Beneath the plane Fahn's figure, standing beside his projector, showed clear-cut against the black rock under him. At the base of the cavern mountain Noths had appeared with apparatus. They were adjusting it hurriedly.
A blue-white flash from Fahn's projector spat downward across the six hundred feet and into the crater mouth. Thunder rolled out. Another flash, another—until they became almost continuous. Far down in the earth within the crater, the slumbering forces began to answer. A rumbling sounded—a low, ominous muttering, pregnant with infinite power. Steam hissed upward; a puff of smoke....
The plane had been ascending rapidly; it was thousands of feet up now. Fahn's thunderbolts persisted, and at last the angered fires of the earth were unleashed. The mountain seemed to split apart; the report was deafening; flaming gases, cinders and ashes were hurled upward and outward.
The main force of the explosion was sidewise toward the city, but even so the plane barely avoided the torrent of molten rock and blazing gas that mounted from below.
The city was engulfed in flames over which a heavy smoke hung like a pall. A tremendous lake of viscous liquid fire lay where the peaks and the cavern once had been. The earth was rumbling, shaking, splitting apart. The scene was vague—dulled by a lurid red glare that struggled with the blackness of the smoke.
A moment, and a rift appeared. The smoke seemed to part, roll aside. Through the rift, the burning city showed for an instant clear and distinct—the crowded city in which no single human or beast could have remained alive.
Still not content, the earth was heaving over the whole western end of the island. And from the sea a great tidal wave came rolling up over the sinking land, hissing, quenching the fires, obscuring everything in a cloud of steam. Like a mist, the steam presently dissipated. The turgid waters lashed themselves into furious waves that gradually were stilled.
And then it was daylight, sullen red day, with only the wreckage on the waters—charred fragments of bodies, thousands of them floating for miles around—mute evidence of what had gone before.