 Chapter 28 of Olga Romanov by George Griffith When the news of what had happened at midnight in the palm grove was published the next morning far and wide through the valley of Aria, it would have been impossible to imagine that an irrevocable sentence of death was overhanging the land and all its inhabitants, save those who were to be selected to take the one chance that remained surviving the chaos that was to come. There was no one in the valley to whom Alan's story was not familiar in all its details. There was not a single heart that had not in the midst of its own happiness, sympathized with him and Alma in their sorrow, and so, when that sorrow was at last turned into joy, everyone forgot for the moment the fate for whose approach was so near and so certain, and rejoiced with them in the happiness that was great enough to raise them above the gloom that was already stealing over the world. But in the midst of the general rejoicing came the decision of the council upon the request which Alan had submitted to his father, and this, though he was forced to confess it wise and just, was by no means what, in his enthusiasm he could have wished. The rulers of Aria absolutely refused to permit any of the airships to leave the valley for at least two months to come. They recognized with perfect approval the nobility of the resolve which Alan had taken to carry the message of the world's approaching end to those nations which he had been partially at least responsible for plunging into the horrors of war. But they insisted that the concerns of Aria must, in their eyes, take precedence of those of the outside world. There was much to do, and the time for doing it was short. What was perhaps the greatest engineering task in the history of the world had to be conceived and completed within the next four months. And as Alan and Alexis were admittedly the two most skillful practical engineers in the state, the council declined to allow them to run the almost certain risk of death at the hands of their enemies, when their knowledge and skill ought to be devoted to the work of ensuring, as far as possible, the preservation of that remnant of the human race who should be destined to seek safety in the caverns of Mount Austral. When the completion of that work was made certain, then permission would be freely given to them and their companions to go forth and proclaim their warning to the world, subject only to the condition that they were to take every precaution consistent with the honour of their race to return, while there was yet time for them to take their place among the children of deliverance, should the selection fall upon them. Meanwhile, telephonic messages were to be sent to all those portions of the world with which Aria was still in communication, conveying the exact terms of the warning that had been received from Mars, and calling upon the astronomers in all the observatories on the globe to verify the calculations for themselves, and publish their conclusions to their respective nations as quickly as possible. With these terms, Alan was of necessity obliged to be content. Indeed, when he came to review them in sober thought, he saw that while nothing was to be lost, much was to be gained by submission to them. Though he still refused, even in spite of the knowledge that he would share with Selma in the future if there was to be one, to obey the order of the council which exempted him from the ordeal of selection, he thought and worked with just as much ardour as though the safety of the whole of the dwellers in Aria, as well as his own, hung upon his efforts. The caverns of Mount Austral, like those of other limestone formations in various parts of the world, had been formed in some remote geological period by the solvent action of water, charged with carbonic gas upon the limestone rocks. The entrance to them, discovered very soon after the valley had been colonised by the terrorists in the first decade of the 20th century, was situated on the inner slopes of the mountain, about 800 feet above the level of the lake, which occupied the central portion of the valley. This lake, although fed by hundreds of streams from the surrounding mountains, always preserved the same level. In spite of the fact that it had no visible outlet, those who first explored the caverns found the explanation of this phenomenon. Below the floors of the vast chambers which penetrated the heart of the mountain for a distance of nearly three miles, there ran a deep chasm, through which rushed in a black, swift, silent stream, the surplus water of the lake. This stream was nearly a thousand feet below the entrance to the caverns, and half that distance below the floor of the lowest chambers and galleries. The scheme, conceived by Alland and Alexis and their fellow workers, was in fact nothing less than the damming of this subterranean stream by a mighty sluice-gate, composed of one huge sheet of metal which, running down into grooves cut in the solid rock, a metal sheath, should completely close the inner mouth of the tunnel by which the waters entered the caverns. This, once successfully fixed in its place, would deprive the lake of its only known outlet. The streams would go on flowing from the mountains and the waters of the lake would rise. The upper entrance would, when the fatal moment came, also be closed, not by one such door, but by three that would slide down one behind the other in the upper tunnel, which, with a diameter of about 30 feet and a height of almost 50, ran for nearly a quarter of a mile from the side of the mountain to the first of the chambers. The spaces between these doors would be filled with ice artificially frozen and shafts to allow for expansion should the ice melt and the water boil would run from them vertically, piercing the mountain side. When the waters rose to the level of the entrance, the doors would be lowered and the space filled with water and frozen. Then the waters would go on rising, the entrance would be submerged, and the defences of the fortress in which the remnants of humanity was to make its last stand for life would be complete. But in addition to these outer defences, there was an enormous amount of work to be done in fitting the interior of the caverns to receive those for whom they were to form an asylum. They were already lighted by myriads of electric lamps, but the source of light was outside and this had to be replaced by power stations inside. Provision had to be made for keeping the air pure and vital, for supplying food and drink for almost an indefinite time, and for storing up a sufficiency of seeds and roots and treasures of art and creative skill, so that the new world might be clothed again with verda and nothing essential of the splendid civilization of area be lost. Such in the briefest outline was the momentous task to which the Aryans devoted all their splendid genius and unconquerable energies, and day by day and week by week they toiled at it, while the fatal hour which was to witness the last agony of man upon earth swiftly drew nearer and nearer. The messages to the outside world had been sent and replied to. Those to the astronomers and to the governments of the Federation had been acknowledged in formal terms, which thinly concealed the incredulity with which they had been received. Olga had treated the message with the silent disdain of a conquering autocrat, such as in sober truth she now was. The Sultan had replied to it in a dispatch in which the dignity of a victorious despot and the fatalism of the religious fanatic was characteristically blended. Then one by one the telephonic communications with the various parts of the world ceased. Messages were sent out and repeated, but no answer came back. First Europe, then Britain, then South Africa, America, and Australia ceased to respond to the signals. And by the beginning of July area was completely isolated from the rest of the world, probably the only stronghold that now remained unsubdued by the conquering fleets of the Sultan and Zarina. Still the sentinel ships hanging high in the air over the valley and constantly patrolling the outer slopes of the mountains saw no sign of hostile approach. The last message that had been received from the great cities of the Federation had told brief but fearful stories of the desolation that was following in the path of Muslim and Russian conquest. The bridges of Gibraltar and the Bosphorus had been forced, and thousands after thousands of Muslim troops had been poured into Europe. Frenzied by fanaticism and the newborn lust of battle and conquest, the hordes of Asiatic trisemen who had escaped the one terrific onslaught of the fleet under the command of Alexis had, now that the guardian ships were withdrawn, been hurried through Russia, and hurled upon the wealthy and most defenseless cities of Western Europe, the Federation was on the point of utter collapse, divided in its councils, confused in its plan of defense, its armies undisciplined and its fleets disorganized and daily diminishing in numbers and effectiveness. In America, Australia, and Southern Africa there was anarchy on earth and terror in the air. Cities had been terrorized into capitulation by aerial squadrons, and then looted and burnt, and their ruins given up to be the missable prey of the revolutionaries who now, as ever, had taken advantage of the universal panic to revolt against all governments, and deny all rights but that which they claimed to prey upon the helpless, all liberty that was not licensed and all property that was not plunder. The last tidings of all that came from Europe were received from Britain, and after recounting the destruction of London and the collapse of the government concluded with the news that Olga had publicly embraced the faith of Islam, and in conjunction with the Sultan whom she was to marry as soon as the conquest of Europe was finally complete, was forcibly converting her Russian subjects to the creed of the Koran. So the affairs of the world stood when the sun went down on the 15th of July, on the meridian of area it set at nine minutes to eight, at 13 minutes past eight according to the calculations made by the Martian and verified by the Aryan astronomers, the herald of fate would approach within range of terrestrial vision. Before the brief period of tropical twilight had passed, every telescope in the valley was turned to that spot, in the constellation of Andromeda at which it was predicted to become visible. As the revolving earth swept area into the shadow of night, every light was extinguished. For it was known that the astronomers of Mars would be anxiously watching for a signal that would announce the correctness or the error of their calculations. Vasilis Cosmo seated at the eyepiece of the great equatorial telescope on Mount Austral, with his hand on the switch which controlled the electric currents that were waiting to do his bidding, watched the fields of space darken, and the stars of Andromeda shine out. Just a little below the line which joins the square of Pegasus with the constellation of Cassiopeia, he saw, as usual, the oval, luminous cloud of the great Nebula in Andromeda. Four degrees towards the zenith, above the center of the star cloud, a tiny fan-shaped spray, faint and pale, as a dissolving puff of white smoke, was floating in the black abyss of space. Precisely at the thirteenth minute of the hour he turned the switch, and the great suns on the mountaintops blazed out and flashed the signal to the sister world to tell its inhabitants that their prediction had been fulfilled to the second. End of chapter 28. Chapter 29 of Olga Romanov by George Griffith. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The truce of God. By the 30th of July the work in the caverns was so far advanced that the council was able to authorize the departure of Alan and his companions for the outside world. The great vertical sluice door, a huge sheet of steel 40 feet long, 20 wide and 18 inches thick, and footed with a great India rubber pad, was in its place, suspended at the top of the steel-lined grooves which had been sunk three feet into each of the rock walls of the chasm into which the water tunnel from the lake opened. On the morning of the 30th it was sent down into its final position. The momentous experiment proved completely successful. The huge mass of metal descended slowly over the mouth of the tunnel into the black swift stream at the bottom of the chasm. As its enormous weight crushed the India rubber pad down into all the inequalities at the floor, the outrush of the water instantly stopped and the channel ran dry, save for the fierce jets of water which spouted out over the top of the plate. The crevices through which these came were easily plugged, and when this was done it was found that the waters of the lake were rising at the rate of three feet an hour. This proved that whether the lake had another outlet or not the damming of the subterranean channels would be quite sufficient to flood the whole valley. The gate was then raised again and the waters permitted to flow as before. The triple doors at the entrance to the cavern were already in position when this was done. As the task of placing them had necessarily been much easier than the construction of the water gate, nothing but details now remained to be completed, and there was therefore no reason for any further postponement of Alan's mission. Alexis had also succeeded in carrying his point and getting permission to accompany Alan in the Isma. He had had no difficulty in satisfying the council that the risk would be enormously diminished by sending two airships instead of one, for while Alan descended to the earth to convey his message to a hostile city he would be able to remain in the air, dominating it with his guns, and ready to lay it in ruins if the flag of Truce were not respected. But the two friends had gained even more than this, for in answer to their earnest pleadings in which it may be suspected they were not altogether unsupported by those as vitally concerned as themselves, a joint family council had decided that under the unparalleled circumstances of the case there was no valid reason for refusing consent to their immediate union, with the two faithful brides who had waited so long and so patiently for their lords. Therefore on the morning of the 31st it came to pass that they stood upon the spot sanctified by the ashes of their great ancestors, and took each other for man and wife, for life or death, as the hazard of the world's fate might decide, in the presence of a vast congregation of those who stood with feet already touching the brink of the valley of the shadow of death. No bridle so strange or solemn had ever been celebrated in the world before. It was human love and hope and genius, serene and confident in the presence of the most awful catastrophe that had ever befallen humanity, defying the fate that was about to overwhelm a world in destruction. That evening, as the sun was touching the tops of the western mountains, the last preparations for the voyage were completed. The last farewells exchanged, and the Isma and the Avenger now named the Alma, by the hands of her name-mother, rose into the air amid salvos of aerial artillery, and winged their way northward over the ridge. As they sped out over the plains of northern Africa the sun sank, and out of the northwestern heaven shone the luminous haze of the fire cloud, which had now grown invisible magnitude until the two fan-like wings which spread out from its central nucleus spanned an arc of twenty degrees in the heavens. As the two airships sped on their northward course towards Alexandria, where Alan had decided to make his first attempt to stay the progress of the world war, the two pairs of new wedded lovers watched with anxious eyes from the decks of their flying craft, the terrible portent in the skies whose meaning they above all others on earth were so well qualified to read. There could be no doubt now, even apart from all the elaborate calculations which had been made, that the prediction of the Martian astronomers was far more likely to be fulfilled than contradicted by the event. Yet so great was the happiness they found in this strange fulfillment of the faint hopes of years of almost hopeless waiting that, even as they journeyed on through the night with this threatening sign of approaching ruin pouring its angry light out of the skies, their talk was still rather of love and life and hope than of death and desolation, which they knew to be overhanging their race with such remorseless certainty. They had lived and loved and their love had found fruition. What more could they have asked of fate than this, even if they could have prolonged their lives indefinitely by a mere effort of will? As Alan had said to Alma at the moment of their re-betrothal in the palm grove, they were immortal now, and for them the death of a world was but an accident on the onward progress of an evolution in which such souls as theirs veritable sparks of the divine fire itself were the dominating factors. As the fire-cloud paled in the west and the eastern heavens brightened with the foreglow of the coming dawn, the captains of the two vessels were roused by the signals from the conning towers which told them that Alexandria was in sight. As soon as he got on deck Alan's signal to the Isma to come close alongside. As she did so, and the morning greetings were exchanged, Alma appeared on deck and suggested that Alexis and Isma should come and have breakfast on board the flagship, so that the two captains could discuss their final plans before descending to the city. The invitation was of course accepted and an hour later the Alma commenced her descent towards the Sultan's palace, above which from a lofty flagstaff the banner of Islam was floating lazily in the early morning breeze. She flew no other ensign save a broad white flag of truce that streamed out from the signal mast at her stern. The whole city seemed asleep, secure in the conquest that had already been won. A single airship floated two thousand feet above the palace, and as he approached her, Alan, keeping her well under his guns, flew from his main mast the signal, we come in peace. Will you respect the flag? The Muslim captain saw at a glance that a single shell would annihilate his vessel, and that the Alma was perfectly protected by her consort, circling two thousand feet above him, so he signalled, yes, come alongside. The Alma descended and swung round until she came on a level with the Muslim vessel, then she ran alongside within speaking distance. The doors of the deck chambers were opened, and Alan, after exchanging salutes, asked the captain whether the Sultan was in his capital. Yes, replied the Muslim, he is down yonder in his palace awaiting the coming of the arena, for they are to join hands today and reign Lord Amistris of the world they have conquered. Is the world then conquered? asked Alan with a smile on his lip, and a note of scorn for pity in his voice. Yes, said the Muslim, east and west, north and south, the world is ours, saving only your own little land, and for that I suppose you have come to make terms of peace. I have not come to make terms of peace for area, but for the world, replied Alan gravely, but of this I must speak with your master. When will he be able to give me an audience? That I cannot say was the reply, or even that he will hear you at all, but pardon, I did not know that the angels of paradise accompanied the Aryans on their voyages. Descend in peace, my master will receive you. As he was speaking, Alma crowned with her crystal wings and radiant with a beauty which to the Muslim's eyes seemed something superhuman, had come from the after part of the vessel to Alan's side. It was the first time that he had ever seen a woman of area, and with the innate chivalry of his race he paid his involuntary homage to her as he would have done to an incarnation of one of the poetic dreams of his faith. Then salutes were exchanged again between the two captains, and the Alma sank swiftly downwards until she hovered twenty feet above the terrace on which Alma had first spoken with the Sultan on the night that he captured the Vindaya. The approach of the Aryan warship had already summoned a party of guards to the roof, and after a brief parley a message was carried to the Sultan from Alan. A few minutes later Calid stepped out of the doorway, leading from the interior of the palace, magnificently attired as though for some great ceremonial. He looked up and saw Alan standing with Alma by his side on the after-deck of his ship. He saw too that the flag of truce was flying from the stern and that the guns were laid alongside instead of being pointed down upon the city. He raised his hand in salute and said, I see you are come in the guise of peace. If that is so, you are welcome. It is peace if your Majesty will have it so, replied Alan, returning his salute, and at the same time making a sign for the Alma to descend to the roof of the palace. As her keels touched the floor of the terrace, the steps fell from the after-doorway, and he came down, leaving Alma standing on deck by the open door. We'll note that your companion honour my palace by touching its roof with her foot, said Calid, looking up at Alma as he exchanged greetings with Alan. My companion, Sultan, is the wife of a man whom you turned your back upon on this very spot as a liar, a traitor, and a murderer, said Alan, looking him straight in the eyes. How then could she honour your palace by setting foot on its roof? For a moment the Sultan was abashed into silence by the directness of the rebuke, and then his oriental subtlety and quickness of thought came to his aid and bending his head with royal dignity, he said. The angels do not meet with such men as that. The Zarina must have been misled by appearance, perhaps indeed carried away by her hereditary hatred of your people. It is impossible that any but a true man could have worn the love of such a woman. You tell me that you came as friends and not as enemies, though, for the hour let there be peace not war between us. While you are my guest, my city is yours, and all that it contains. I pledge my honour for your safety, so let the daughter of the air descend that I may hear from her lips the music of her voice. Turning aside, half to hide a smile of the oriental metaphor of the Sultan's speech, Alan went to the foot of the steps and held at his hand to Alma. As she alighted on the terrace, he led her towards him, saying, This is my wife. Yesterday morning she was Alma Tremaine, a daughter of the fifth generation of the first president of the Federation. Her ancestors and yours made terms of peace after the war of the terror. It is therefore more fitting that you should hear from her lips than from mine the message that we bring. My ears are waiting, said Caled, bending low over the hand that Alma held out to him as Alan spoke. It would be a strange message that would not be welcomed from such lips. From one whom she could have looked upon as an equal such language as this would have jarred sorely upon Alma, a customer she was to the frank directness of her own people's speech. But from Caled she tolerated it as she would have tolerated the extravagance of a child, and as he raised his head again, she looked at him with eyes that dazzled him afresh. Intoxicated as he already was with her, to him, strange and almost unearthly beauty, and said in a voice such as he had never heard before, Thank you, Sultan, for your welcome. But surely there is little need for me to tell you what message we bring. Last night you saw it written in letters of fire across the heavens. Has not the voice of God spoken bidding you and your people to cease the cruel warfare that you are waging upon the world, and to prepare for the end of which that is a sign? As she spoke, she raised her hand and pointed to where the shape of the fire cloud now hung in the sky like a white mist pailing before the light of the rising sun. You rejected our first warning, as perhaps was natural, but now that you have seen the confirmation of it shining among the stars, surely you will no longer reject it. The last words were spoken in a gentle pleading tone which no man could have heard without being moved by them. Daughter of the ear replied the sultan following her hand with his eyes. I have seen and in a measure I believe your message, though my interpretation of it may be other than yours. If the end of the world is at hand, the commander of the faithful will know how to meet it as a true believer should. It is not impossible that there may be peace between us yet in the last hours of earthly life, for I would not willingly make war on a people that has daughters such as you. Not for our sake, sultan, but for the sake of all who have survived this terrible warfare of yours, we are come to plead with you for peace, said Alma. There is no time for hate and strife and bloodshed. There will be horrors enough upon earth before long, without any made by the fury of man. It is in your power to give peace to the world, and breathing space to meet its end. Why will you not give it? You'll forget it is not I alone who can give peace. replied Caled. If that were so, before he could speak, another word, a salvo of aerial artillery, shook the air above the city. All looked up towards the northern sky once the sound proceeded, and saw a squadron of twenty silver-hulled airships flying the Muslim and Russian flags, and escorting in two divisions a warship from whose flag snap flew the imperial standard of Russia, and whose shining hull of Azorine proclaimed her the lost ethereal. Alan grasped the perilous situation in an instant, and was about to tell Alma to go back on board their own ship when the sultan, divining his intentions, took a step forward and said, Do you think that the Caled cannot protect his guest or that his ally will not respect the hospitality of his house? You are safe. If a hair of your head was harmed, Azoriner and I would be enemies, and she would come to her death instead of her bridle. For that is what brings her here. There is truth between us for this day, at least, and she shall not break it. As he ceased speaking, the twenty airships opened out into a long line and remained suspended five hundred feet above the palace. While the revenge continued her downward flight, and alighted at the farther end of the terrace from where they were standing. The after-door of the deck chamber opened as she touched the marble pavement. The steps dropped down, and Olga descended. A tide, as usual, in a plain robe of royal purple, over which hung a travelling mantle of pearl grey cloth, as fine and as soft as silk, and lined with the then almost priceless fur of the silver fox. Her head was uncovered, save for a plain golden fillet, from which rose a pair of slender silver wings so thickly entrusted with diamonds that they seemed entirely fashioned of the flashing gems. The golden fillet shone out brightly, yellow against the lustrous black of her thickly coiled hair, and the diamond wings blazed and scintillated in the sunlight, with every movement of her head. As she descended the steps, she was followed by all of Lusensky, and a guard of honour of twelve of her officers, splendidly dressed and armed to the teeth, who as soon as they landed drew their swords, which were now only used as ornamental insignia of rank, and ranged themselves in two lines, one on either side of her. Before the revenge had elighted the sultan had made a sign to one of the sentries who blew a long, clear blast on a silver bugle, which was instantly answered by a hundred others from various parts of the city. At the sound the Muslim metropolis seemed to wake from sleep into universal activity. Thousands of soldiers in brilliant uniforms poured into the empty streets. The Muslim and Russian flags ran up to a thousand flagstaffs, squadron after squadron of aerial cruisers soared up from the earth, and saluted with salvos of artillery, which shook the very firmament and brought Alexis down to within three thousand feet of the palace roof in the belief that Alan and Alma had fallen victims to some treachery, and that the time had come for him to avenge them by laying the city in ruins as he had promised to do in such an event. A single glance through his field-glasses showed him the true state of affairs, so he contented himself with keeping his crew at quarters with every gun trained on a Russian or a Muslim airship, and ready to spread death and ruin far and wide should any harm happen to the Alma or her crew. While this was taking place, the Sultan's bodyguard had filed out onto the terrace, resplendent with gorgeous uniforms and glittering weapons, and between the two long lines that they formed, Caelid advanced to meet his bride, leaving Alan and Alma interested in not an anxious spectators of the strange and unexpected scene. They met halfway down the double line, and as Olga held out the hand of which Caelid bowed low as he raised it to his lips, she said, with a glance of undisguised hate towards Alan and Alma, and a mocking smile on her lips. Your Majesty's generosity is unbounded. I see that you have invited to our wedding feast the only enemies with whom we have yet to measure swords. They have not come as enemies, Alina, replied Caelid, as he raised his head and looked with but half-restrained ardour on the beauty that was so soon to be his, nor yet have they come at my invitation, Alan Arnold and his wife. His what? Interrupted Olga, her cheeks burning and her eyes flashing with a sudden blaze of uncontrollable anger. His wife, Zarina, replied Caelid, somewhat coldly. The stun of Natasha and Richard Arnold has meted with their daughter of Alan Tremaine, and they have come in the fifth generation to warn you, their daughter of the house Romanoff and me, the son of the line of Mohammed Urshad, to cease our warfare upon the nations and prepare for the universal end which they tell us is at hand. Caelid spoke, as Olga thought, half ingest and half in earnest, so she continued in the same mocking tone in which he had first spoken. Then, if that is so, if all human enemies are soon to be purged by the old destroying fire, we may as well meet in peace for the moment. Will your Majesty honour me by presenting me to your uninvited guests? Uninvited, but still my guests, Zarina, replied Caelid gravely, and therefore I need not ask you. No, Sultan, said Olga, interrupting him. Your need ask me nothing. You need not fears that I should not respect the hospitality of your house, even then extended to them. As she spoke, she gave him her hand again, and he led her between the silent rigid ranks of his guards to where Alan and Alma were standing. Since men and women had learned to love and hate, there had been no such strange meeting between two women as that which now took place between Alma and Olga. It was the first time that Olga had ever seen a woman of the race to which Alan belonged, and Alma, for the first time confronted with the daughter of the earth folk, saw in Olga Romanov at once the most beautiful woman outside the confines of area and the incarnations of everything she had been trained to look upon as evil. While the Sultan was speaking, the words of presentation their eyes met, and Alma thought of that sentence in Alan's letter to his father. She is as beautiful as an angel and as messulous as a fiend. While Olga looked back to the time when she first heard Alma's name and hated her for the sake of him who now stood beside her, her lover and her husband, the man she had held in bondage for years without winning one voluntary caress from him. Alma's first emotion was one of wonder. Here the two she had seen nothing beautiful that was not at the same time good, for in area the conceptions of beauty and goodness were inseparable. But here was a woman of almost perfect physical loveliness, after her own type, who was beyond all doubt guilty of the most colossal crimes that a human soul had conceived or a human hand had carried out since men first learned to sin. The world which ten years before had been a paradise of peace, prosperity and enlightened progress was now a wilderness of misery and an inferno of strife, fast lapsing back into barbarism, and all this was her doing. As this thought came to Alma's mind, standing out distinct among all the others that were forcing themselves upon her, wonder gave place to unspeakable horror, and as Olga approached, with the light of hate still burning in her eyes and the same mocking smile upon her lips, she instinctively shrank back as though to avoid contact with some unclean thing. As she did so, her hand slipped through Alma's arm and a visible shudder ran through her form. Marvelous as Olga's power of self-control and dissimulation was, she failed entirely to restrain the passion which such a reception aroused within her. It was the first time in her life that she had ever stood in the presence of a woman untainted by a spot of sin or shame, and this woman recoiled from her invisible lozing, beautiful and mighty as she was, at the very zenith of her conquering career and on the morning of her promised union with the man who, as she believed, would before many days share the empire of the world with her. Hardened as she was, the mute rebuke cut her to the quick. The flush on her cheeks died out and left her so pale for the moment that her face looked almost ghastly with its gray lips and black burning eyes. This daughter of a higher race had at a single glance pierced the splendid mask which covered the fearful deformity of her true nature. She thought of the night long ago in the bedroom at St. Petersburg, when by the light of the unearthly flame hovering above her poison still, she had seen her image in the mirror. Then pride and anger came to her rescue. The blood returned to her cheeks and lips. She drew herself up to the full height of her queenly stature, and as the sultan spoke the words of presentation, she slightly inclined her head, and then raising it again said, in low, even tones, whose wonderful music sent her chill to Alma's heart. This is a pleasant surprise, Alan Arnold, a little thought that after our last parting, we should meet again, safe in battle. Much less did I think that you would honour my bridle by bringing your own bride to it. Still, as the sultan tells me, there is truth for today, and so far as to my enemy, you are welcome. We have not come as guests to your bridle, Serena, said Alan coldly and gravely, nor have we come to make truths as between mortal enemies. The enmities of men and nations are but as child's play now. We have come to proclaim the truth of God against the hour of his final judgment. End of Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Of Olga Romanov, my George Griffith This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The Shadow of Death Ah, I see, said Olga. You have come to tell us this wonderful story about the comet, and the message you say you have received from Mars over again. You are not the first who have prophesied the end of the world by such means, nor will you be the last to be discredited by the event. Once and for all then, let me save misunderstanding by telling you that I don't believe a word of it, and therefore nothing that you can say will have any effect on the cause of action that I have determined upon. You are of course at liberty to preach your truth elsewhere, and at your own risk. So I fear it will be but the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Yes, truly in the wilderness, said Alma before Alan could reply, but a wilderness that you have made with your own hands, Serena. You who have been the evil genius of the world. Have you not done harm enough, now that the world has only a few more weeks to live? According to the idle tale you bring us, interrupted Olga, repressing with a barely successful effort the anger aroused afresh within her by the serene tone in which Alma spoke. It sounded rather like the voice of an angel speaking to a mortal than of one woman addressing another, and even to herself Olga was forced to admit that there could be no question of equality between this daughter of the heir and herself. It is no idle tale, replied Alma, almost in the same tone which she might have used in reproving a wayward child. It is not even a prophecy. It is a mathematical certainty, and if you understood, you would believe. You are wasting your time and your own breath, said Olga scornfully. You are not my guest, but the sultans, yet he may allow me to say that we have other demands upon our attention, more important than listening to such sentimentality as this. Before Alma could answer, Alan turned to the sultan as though not deigning to reply to Olga's insulting speech. Your Majesty, I see that this is no time to perform the mission upon which I came. We did not expect the presence of this arena here. Had we done so, we should not have come. For I know how vain it would be to reason with her. I came prepared to satisfy the most skillful astronomers in your kingdom, that what I say is absolutely true, and I venture to hope that you, if satisfied by their assurances, would give peace to the world for the remnants of its days. But even so, it is not for us to interrupt or even to introduce an unpleasant element into the doings of today. So with your Majesty's permission I will leave the calculations with your Minister, and relieve you and the Zarina of our unwelcome presence. All this time the grand vizier Musa Algazi had been standing a little to the rear of the group, shaking his beard nervously, and looking anxiously from one to the other. He seemed about to speak, when Kaelid said to Alan with a courtesy which contrasted strongly with Olga's contemptuous demeanour. I thank you, Prince of the Air, as much as stand I think that will be the most reasonable, as well as the most convenient course, though I am far from convinced that you are not mistaken. Yet I can assure you that the bare skill in my domains shall exam in what you leave us. Musa, the old man turned pale as his master pronounced his name, and stepped forward with a visible agitation, which was by no means accounted for by the circumstances of the strange situation. Instead of waiting for Kaelid's commands, he said as he made his obeisance before him. Commander of the faithful, I am here, but before your Majesty bids me tix his papers from the hands of Alan Arnold, I would ask permission to say a word that must be said in private. In private, Musa, said Kaelid, frowning slightly and passing his hand down his beard, this is hardly a time for state secrets. It is but my duty to my master that bids me to speak, replied the old man, again bending before him. A moment will suffice for the speaking of what I have to say. Musa's tongue was so earnest and his anxiety so palpable that Kaelid, without more ado, made his excuses to the Zarina, and his unexpected guess and stepped aside out of earshot with his vizier. Well, Musa, what is it that is so pressing and yet so private? He asked, a trifle impatiently. My master, replied the old minister, in a voice that now trembled with emotion, there is no need to examine the calculation from area. On hour before the daybreak, hacham ben Amru, your chief astronomer, at the observatory of Memphis, came to me, and told me that he had completed his own calculations of the curve and period of the comet, and that, allowing for difference in longitude between our meridian and that of area, the prediction for Mars will be fulfilled beyond all doubt at midnight on the 23rd of September. This was testimony which it was impossible for Kaelid to question. Musa's sincerity was beyond all question, and hacham ben Amru was the most renowned astronomer in the world outside area. Kaelid recoiled apace as though he had been struck, and said in a voice hoarse with sudden emotion, Why, did you not tell me this before, Musa? Because I would not mar my master's happiness for this day at least, replied Musa, If it be true that the end of earthly things is at hand a day is of but small account, to tell you would neither hasten nor delay the end. But Arnold's words forced me to speak, for I knew that hacham would speak if I did not. Kaelid laid his hands upon the old man's shoulders, and said gravely but kindly, It was well, thought Musa, and I thank you for your consideration. Evil as your news is, it is kismet, and the will of other must be done. So saying, he turned away and walked with slow steps and downcast eyes, to where Olga was standing, talking to Orloflosenski, with her back turned in open contempt upon Alma and Alan. A single glance at his face told her that Musa had no pleasant tidings to impart. Your majesty looks grave, she said. Had Musa given you news of some disaster to Orloflosenski? More than that, Tsarina, replied Kaelid, he has brought me confirmation that I cannot doubt of the truth or the message from Eria. That, exclaimed Alma, in a quick, passionate tone that all standing near could hear, the confirmation of that thrice-told tale with which these people are trying to impose on our feels. Surely your majesty is jesting now. No, Tsarina, it is no subject for jesting, but only for earnest and solemn thought, answered Kaelid seriously. I neither can nor will believe it. cried Olga passionately, her long restrained anger completely overcoming her prudence, and her whole soul rising in ungovernable revolt. Believe or not as you will. I will not. It cannot be possible. It is too monstrous for all credence. Why would one think that very fates themselves were fighting against us if that were true, and for bringing the world to an end just as we have conquered it for our own, for our own, as for these aliens? She continued, turning upon Alan and Alma, and taking a couple of steps towards them. They have come here with this vile story to cover an attempt to make terms with us, before it is too late. It is a trick to deceive you, but it shall not succeed in my presence. Do you not remember how, upon this very spot little more than a year ago, I showed you this same Alan Arnold, who now comes preaching about his truth of God, as the shameless liar and traitor that he is? She had thrown off all disguise and all restraint now. Hatred was shining out of her eyes, and open scorn was upon her lips. She waved her hands with a contemptuous gesture towards them, and went on. If you have come to ask for terms of peace, be honest and say so. You need not fear to speak, for there may be conditions on which we will let you live. Kaelid was about to utter some reproof, and Alan's hand had gone instinctively to the hilt of his rapier, when Alma stepped forward and faced Olga. Her own eyes now burning dark with anger, and her cheeks flushed with the hot blood which Olga's insults had called to them. Make terms with you, she said, looking down upon her from the height of her splendid stature, with you, who have laid the earth waste, and made the habitations of men desolate, with you, who I could strike dead at my feet without staining my hand by laying it upon you. It is for you to make terms, if you can, not with us, but with the heaven whose justice you have outraged, and whose patience you have scorned. Seize this idle talk of battle and conquest, this impious defiance of the decrees of fate. Can you make terms with God? If so, then when you see his sign blazing in the heavens tonight, cause it to change its path, and pass aside from the earth. If not, kneel down and pray, not for your life, for that would be useless. But for the strength to meet your end in the midst of the desolation that you have created. Olga heard her in silence to the end, a whole being shaken with the tempest of passion that Alma's words set raging in her breast. For a moment she stood speechless, white to the lips and trembling in every limb from very rage. Then she suddenly stepped back a pace and cried in a voice more like the cry of a wild animal in pain than human speech. This is a word lives or not, you shall not, whatever comes. And as she spoke, she snatched a pistol out of her girdle and levelled it at Alma's heart. Before she could spring the lock, Alan had snatched Alma up in his arms, and Kalid, with a cry of horror and anger, had sprung forward and grasped Olga's wrist. The bullet flew high, cutting one of the wings of Alan's coronet in its flight. Half a dozen strides took him alongside his ship, and in another instant he was standing on her deck. His left arm ran Alma's waist holding her behind him, and his right hand grasping one of his pistols. He raised his arm, and the pistol flashed. At the same moment he stamped on the deck, and the Alma leapt a thousand feet obliquely into the air. The second before the pistol flashed, Olga turned her head, as though she were going to fire again, and the motion saved her life. For Alan's bullet, instead of piercing her brain, as it was meant to do, cut a straight red gash across her forehead, from temple to temple, and buried itself in the breast of Orloflasensky, as he sprang forward to snatch his mistress out of the line of fire. He pitched forward and dropped, and Kalid, forgetting everything else in the horror of the moment, caught Olga in his arms as a rain of blood streamed down over her face, and a shrill scream of pain and rage burst from her lips. Although there were nearly three hundred warships floating in the air above Alexandria, and though the rapidly enacted tragedy on the roof of the palace could be distinctly seen from their necks, the Alma escaped skateless, for the simple reason that, so terrible, was the energy developed by the projectiles in use that had one struck her as she left the terrace, the palace itself would have been wrecked, and every living being within a radius of two hundred yards from the focus of the explosion would have been instantly killed. Consequently, the captains of the Russian and Muslim ships had to look on in angry impotence as she leapt out of range, joined her consort and with her soared away westward until a height of fifteen thousand feet was reached, and so vanished from the sight of their discomforted enemies. From Alexandria they crossed the Mediterranean and Europe to Britain by way of Italy, the valley of the Rhône and Paris. At a height of some five thousand feet from the land, what they saw more than justified the reports which had reached area. The fairest countries of Europe were now only blackened deserts and wasted wilderness. They flew all day over deserted fields and towns and cities that were little better than heaps of blackened ruins, and when night fell and the fire cloud blazed out of the sky, its glare was answered by flames rising from the earth, and huge patches of mingled smoke and flame which marked the sights of other towns which were only now falling victims to the destroyers. Society had practically come to an end. People who, a few weeks before, had been wealthy, watched almost with apathy the plunder of their homes and the burning of their palaces by the armed bands of robbers which sprang up everywhere. There was no longer any protection for life and property. If anarchists on the earth did not burn and slay and plunder, their enemies in the air would, and even if they did not, what did it matter if friends and foes, plunderers and plundered, were to be consumed together in the fire that was about to fall from heaven. Amidst the universal terror, Alma, with her almost unearthly beauty, the calm dignity of her bearing and the sweetness and gentleness of her loving counsels, passed through the devastating lands rather like an angel of mercy than a woman of the same flesh and blood as the distracted, panic-stricken crowds through which she moved by Alan's side, speaking her message in a voice that seemed to be an echo from some other world. When the Alma and the Isma reached London ten days after leaving at Alexandria, they found the vast and one splendid metropolis of the world a wide waste of broken, blackened, and in some places still smoking ruins. Of its fifteen million of inhabitants barely three million remained to people its fragments. All the rest had fled soon after the first assault, or had fallen in the pitiless carnage that had been let loose upon them. They remained three days amid the ruins of London, listening to the most heart-rendering tales of suffering and cruelty, and giving in return such consolation as they could. Then they took the air again, and journeyed on westward over the once fair and smiling English land that was now a wilderness, amidst with plague and famine, anarchy and destruction stalked triumphant, while the few who listened to their message waited in despairing terror for the fate that could hardly be worse than what they had passed through since the fatal 16th of May. From England they crossed the Atlantic to America, and from America they spared over the Pacific to Australia, finding everywhere the same desolation upon the face of the earth, and the same terror and despair in the minds of men. But for the awful reality before their eyes it would have been impossible for them to believe that the civilization which had seemed so strong and splendid four months before could have collapsed as it had done into such utter chaos. In those four short months the whole tragedy of human life on earth seemed to have been reenacted. The frenzy and panic of war had degenerated into a universal delirium. Men, women and children had gone mad by millions, religious fanatics, imposters and enthusiasts, if possible more insane than the hearers, preached the wildest and most blasphemous doctrines and uttered the most hideous prophecies, not only as to the approaching end of the world, but of the imaginary eternal horrors that were to follow it. The art and science and culture of five hundred years had been forgotten in those few weeks of madness, and mankind had sunk back wholesale into the grossest superstition of the dark ages. Every night, when the flaming shape of the fire cloud blazed out among the stars, millions fell down on their knees and greeted it with prayers and invocations, as savages had once been want to worship their fetishes. By the end of August, when the fiery arc over-arched more than two-thirds of the heavens and rivaled the sunlight itself in brightness, the degeneration of humanity had advanced to such a fearful stage of intellectual and moral depravity that even human sacrifices were offered to appease the wrath of the deity who was believed to have taken the shape of the fire cloud. Under the influence of delirium, the human mind had gone back through 25 centuries, and the worship of Baal and Moloch had returned upon earth. Only a small minority of men and women preserved their senses amidst the universal madness. These greeted the Aryans as friends, and heard their message and promised to remain steadfast to the end. But as day after day went by, and the terror grew and the nations plunged deeper and deeper into the Saturnalia of frenzy and despair, the task undertaken by Alan and Alma grew more and more hopeless, and when the last day of August came, they at length confessed to themselves that it was useless to pursue it any further. This, too, was the day on which the term of absence granted by the council expired, and so at nightfall, after having carried their message round the whole world and passed it by the mouths of those who were willing to listen through many lands, they at length reluctantly turned their prouds homeward, and, with hearts sickened by all the unspeakable horrors they had witnessed, soared upwards into the luridly lighted heavens, leaving the world to the fate which in twenty-three days more would overwhelm the conquerors and the conquered, the few sane and the many mad, in universal and inevitable destruction. Alan timed his arrival, so that the Alma and her consort crossed the ridge a few minutes after sunrise on the first of September. As they alighted in the central square of the city, and disembarked greet the group of friends and kindred who were waiting to receive them, a strange stillness struck their ears and sent a mysterious chill to their hearts. The splendid capital of Aria seemed like a city of the dead. Its broad white streets and squares were empty, there were no boats on the lake and no aerial yachts in the air as they were want to be at sunrise. The gardens were deserted and silent. Even the songs of birds which had welled up from them in a chorus of greeting to the coming sun were now hushed, and the birds themselves were flying restlessly from branch to branch, twittering and calling to each other, frightened sharers in the universal fear. It was not long before Alan learnt from his father the explanation of this strange and mournful change in the life of the valley. A few days after their departure a mysterious epidemic had appeared among the people of Aria. First the old, then the middle aged, and then the young had been silently and swiftly stricken down, first in hundreds, and then in thousands. There was no sign of physical disease, no apparent source of physical infection, and none of the horrors which characterised the plagues that were decimating the outside world. Those attacked by it went to bed in apparently robust health, and in the morning they were found dead, with an expression of perfect peace upon their features, and no marks of disease upon their bodies. That was all that was publicly known. There had been, and, as the President told his son, there would be no inquiry into the cause or origin of the epidemic. Whether those who died died voluntarily, or whether the visitation was a merciful release from the torment and terror of the general doom, it was not for those who survived to ask. It was enough for them that the shadow of death had begun to steal silently and swiftly over the land of the royal race who had raised the dignity of humanity to a height untouched before in the story of man. They were content to know that their friends and kindred were permitted to die in painless peace, rather than forced to writhe out their last hours in torture amidst the conflagration of the world. All day and all night for nearly a month the fires of a hundred crematoria had burned, and day and night the funeral possessions had never ceased passing through their gates. The population of area which had been over a million at the end of July was now little more than a hundred thousand, and these were hourly dwindling under the mysterious epidemic. Those who had returned in the Alma and the Yzma accepted all without question and applied themselves with all their energy to the performance of the solemn duties that remained to them. The work in the caverns of Mount Austro was now almost completed, and the minute calculations which had been made had shown that it would be possible for two hundred and fifty souls to find a refuge in them for ten days if necessary. Sufficient supplies of food had been already stored, the machinery for lighting the caverns was complete, and the solid oxygen had been enclosed in steel, reservoirs to supply what would be consumed by respiration, while provision had also been made for continually abstracting the carbonic acid and other injurious constituents from the respired air. Everything that human genius and skill at their best could do to ensure the preservation of this remnant of humanity had been done. And by the 15th of September and by the 15th of September the caverns were finally ready for occupation. Only one more task now remained to be completed, and this was the selection of those who were to survive, provided that the precautions taken proved adequate. Unspeakably pathetic as this work of selection was, it was performed with a calm and apparently passionless precision worthy of the unparalleled solemnity of the occasion, and the splendid traditions of those who accomplished it. The field of selection was first narrowed by confining it to those who had been regularly betrothed when the first message was received from Mars. From these first the physically perfect were chosen, then the strongest, and the fairest of these, and finally those who to their physical perfection added the highest intellectual and moral qualities. The work was performed by the ruling council assisted by a council of an equal number of matrons who had what had once been accounted the misfortune to be childless. Neither joy nor sorrow was shown, at least in public, either by those who were chosen or by those upon whom the joint council was forced to pronounce sentence of death by rejecting them. The natural joy of the chosen was lost in the universal sorrow of the now inevitable parting, and those who were destined not to survive, satisfied with the perfect justice with which the selection had been made, consoled each other with the knowledge that they would die hand in hand and be spared the sorrow of surviving all who were nearest and dearest to them. On the morning of the eighteenth, the temple of area witnessed the last ceremony that would ever take place within its walls. This was the marriage of those who, unless they last refuge shared in the destruction that was about to bring chaos upon the earth, were to be the parents of the new race that was to re-people the world. The survivors of the whole nation now barely filled the vast interior of the temple. The solemn words which bound youth and made together as man and wife to face side by side the last ordeal that humanity would ever have to pass through were spoken in the midst of a silence which reigned not only in the temple, but now throughout the whole valley. All the sentinel ships had now been withdrawn save one, which from a height of fifteen thousand feet still kept watch and ward against the coming of the foe that was even yet expected. But this was the only sign of life within the confines of area. And when the solemn ceremony was ended and the assembly filed out of the doors, the members of it betook themselves almost in silence to their homes. There to make their final preparations for life or death, as destiny had selected them to live or die. End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Of Olga Romanov by George Griffith This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The Last Battle At sunset on the fifteenth the sluice door had been finally lowered into its place and the pent up waters of the lake of area had risen nearly forty feet by the next morning. Only the upper parts of the villas on its banks were visible, and its area was so enormously increased that the whole appearance of the valley was altered. Rising at first, at the rate of three feet an hour, a rate which of course decreased as the area became greater, the waters would reach the entrance to the cavern as soon after sunset on the evening of the fatal twenty-third. A little before midnight on the twenty first, the Orion, the sentinel ship that was on guard at the time, sank swiftly down with the news that she had made out by the light of the fire-cloud which, lurid and ghastly as it was, was as brilliant and penetrating as that of the sun at noonday, a large fleet of airships approaching from the northwards. The city was by this time almost entirely submerged. Only a few minarets and towers and the top of the great golden dome of the temple surmounted by its crystal-winged figure showed above the surface. The remnant of the people of area now reduced to less than seven thousand souls, including those chosen to take refuge in the caverns, were occupying the villas on the slopes of Mount Austral, above the entrance to the caverns. Six thousand of them were men who had lived solely in the hope of such an attack as was now about to be made, and which would enable them to die fighting, the common enemy of mankind to the last in defense of their beloved native land. Not even now, when the hand of destiny had set a definite limit to all human hopes and fears, and when the remainder of their own lives could be counted by ours, could this faithful remnant of the Aryans endure the thought that what had been their paradise and their home should be violated and polluted by the appearance of their foes. Therefore they had lived for this last battle, and five hundred airships were waiting to carry them into the air to engage in the last fight that ever would be fought on earth. All their friends and kindred, saving only the children of deliverance, as in fond fancy they had called the little band of the chosen ones were now dead, and the few hours of life that were left to them had nothing more to give them. So they received with a grim joy the summons to battle which had been so long expected. Four thousand of them manned the airships. The rest occupied the mountain batteries, and within a quarter of an hour of the bringing of the news the warships had mounted into the air, and the great guns of the batteries were ready to haul their projectiles upon the advancing foe. It was a spectacle to make angels weep and devils laugh. This last marshalling of the forces of human hate and hostility in the closing hours of the life of humanity and on the threshold of eternity. It seemed that the tragedy of man was to be played out to the bitter end, and that human strife was only to cease on earth with the destruction of the world. This, too, was the work of a single woman, inspired by quenchless hatred and insatiable ambition and a pride of spirit which, in its haughty incredulity, still refused to believe that the end of her conquering career had come. Pitiless, and without scruple to the end, Olga, while she was recovering from her wound under the shelter of the Sultan's Ruth, had managed, with the aid of her waiting-woman Anna, not only to poison the Grand Vizier Musa and Hakam, the astronomer, but also to bring Kalid himself into the same state of moral slavery in which she had so long held Alan and Alexis. It was she who had brought this fleet from Alexandria to Aria. Once under the fatal spell of her will-poison she had commanded Kalid to revoke the orders that he had given for peace, and he had obeyed. A fleet of more than five hundred airships had been collected, and taking Kalid with her on board the Revenge so that there should be no chance of his recovering his volition. She had come to fulfil the prophecy, which Paul Romanov uttered when in the last hours of his life he had declared that one day the Eagle of Russia should fly over the battlements of Aria. All the materials for constructing ten airships had been taken into the caverns, so that in the event of the remnant surviving the Empire of the Air should still be theirs. But the Alma and the Isma still lay outside the entrance when the other ships had risen into the air. At the supreme moment a controversy had arisen as to whether or not Alan and Alexis, the latter of whom had been placed without question among the chosen, not only because of his unequalled engineering skill, but also because without him a daughter of the House of Arnold would have died of her own will, should or should not take part with their companions in the near approaching conflict. This dispute was brought to a sudden close by Alan, who with a single inspiration cut short all the loving entreaties that were being made to him to take refuge in the caverns, and avoid the chance which in the heat of the conflict might destroy with him the male line of the descendants of the first Conqueror of the Air. Do you not see, he said, that it is quite possible that their fleet may be twice as strong as ours, and that in spite of all our gallant flow and hope can do, they may cross the mountains and send their shells into the valley. What if one of them exploded here, and wrecked the outworks and the entrance to the caverns? All hope even for us would then be lost. The doors could not be lowered, and we should either have to let the waters of the lake flow out, or they would flow into the cavern by the upper entrance and ruin all our labours. We have proved that the Elmer and the Isma are the true best airships in existence. They can soar higher and travel faster than any others. Would it not be madness to deprive our defending force of them? And would it not be cowardice in us not to do all we can to save all that is left for us to hope for on earth? I for one shall go, and I don't believe that I shall go alone. If the Elmer goes, the Isma goes too, said Alexis. Alan is right. We should be cowards to turn our backs on the enemies at this last moment. And if you go, we go, said Elmer and Isma, in a breath. If you live, we will live with you, but we will not live without you. There was no answer to such reasoning as this, nor was there any longer any law on earth save that of individual will. The first motive power that had swayed the world was the last that survived and would be the last to die. Those of the old crews of the two airships who were found among the chosen at once came forward to take their places, and with them came to those who had elected to take the hazard of life or death with them. There shall be no widows in the new world, said they, and so every man who rose into the air on board the two great warships, carried with him the woman without whom the one last chance of life would not have been worth taking. As they left the earth the remainder of the little company retired into the caverns. Leaving two sentinels posted at the outer door ready to give the alarm in case it should be necessary to lower the doors. As they did so, a long, dull, distant roar came from the Northwood, telling that the last battle of man with man had begun. In accordance with the plan hastily arranged before they rose, the Elmer was to guard the northern end of the valley, while the Isma kept watch over the southern. They soared up and up until the peaks of the mountains were a good five thousand feet below them. From this elevation those on board the Elmer could see the enemy's fleet stretched out in a huge crescent made up of tiny points of light which shone in the unnatural glare that illumined the earth and sky, and ever and anon they saw enormous spheres of flame blaze out along the line as the projectiles from the land batteries burst in front of them. The gunners were only trying their range, and the enemy was still behind it. The explosion of the projectiles told the assailants that area was on the alert, still prepared for battle and still, for all they knew as impregnable as ever. Seeing this they ceased their advance, and a battle of tactics preceded the pitiless struggle which only the victors would survive. Hour after hour the Muslim and Russian airships strove to outsaw the Aryans, or to make a rush in twos and threes that would bring them within range of the charmed circle of the mountains. But no sooner did one of them sweep up at full speed out of the distance and slow down sufficiently to train her guns than the atmosphere about her was convulsed with a mighty shock, and changed instantly into a mist of fire. And when this vanished she had vanished too, shattered to fragments which dropped in a rain of molten metal thousands of feet to the earth below. Morning came. The flaming arch of the fire circle sank lower and lower in the heavens until it stretched a broad band of lurid light round the western horizon, and an unclouded sun brought the last dawn but one that the terror-maddened myriads of earth would ever see. Still the fight went on at long ranges. Still ship after ship of the hostile fleet made its desperate effort to cross the invisible barrier which was drawn all round area by the range of its protecting guns, only to be overturned and hurled to the earth by the shock of an exploding projectile or to be fairly struck and dissolved to dust. No matter how high they attempted to soar the Alma Anaisma was still above them, and if the shells from the land batteries failed to do their work the guns of the airship did it for them, and the results were the same. Annihilation. The night of the 22nd was spent in incessant attack and defense. The crews of the Aryan ships, grown desperate in their supreme despair, now left the mountains and sallied forth into the open, engaging the enemy ship for ship and gun for gun in a last determined effort to destroy them, or be destroyed, and far out from the still untouched battlements of area the fight raged, fast and furious. There now was no thought of safety in the hearts of the Aryans. They had come forth to kill and be killed. The rules of aerial tactics were utterly neglected. They laid their guns alongside and, rushing through the air at their utmost speed, they hurled themselves with the ram upon every Muslim or Russian vessel that they could meet or overtake, crashing into her with irresistible force and going with her into annihilation as their two cargos of shells exploded under the shock. The last sun rose and saw the fight still going on. What had begun as the greatest battle in the history of war had now dwindled down to a series of single combats. At length the end came. It was a few minutes after midday that the last blow in the battle was struck. Ten Russian and Muslim airships, all that remained of the great fleet that Olga had brought against area, formed in line ten miles from the ridge, and made a last attempt to break through the defenses. Flying through a storm of shells from the land batteries, seven of them were torn to pieces and the other three, just as they reached the ridge, were met obliquely by the five remaining vessels of the Aryan fleet. The same moment the Alma's broadside was discharged upon them, friend and foe vanished together in a mist of flame, and so ended the assault and defense of area. We can go now, said Alan, in a broken voice to Alma, who was standing white and speechless with horror at his side in the boughs of the airship. It is all over. God rest the gallant souls, for they left the world like brave men and true Aryans. Amen! sighed Alma. Then after a brief pause she said, I wonder whether Olga Romanov is alive or dead? The two airships now sank together and alighted close to the entrance to the caverns. There the splendid fabrics were reluctantly abandoned, their crews disembarked, taken with them everything they wished to preserve, and a minute inspection was made for the last time of the triple doors and the machinery for luring them and filling the spaces between them with water to be frozen as soon as they were in their places. This occupied the time until the evening, and then all went once more into the open air to take what might be their last look at the sun. The waters of the lake were now within a few feet of the entrance, creeping more and more slowly upwards, and across the vast expanse of water lying unruffled by the lightest breeze fell the mingled rays of the sinking sun and the brightening fire-cloud. There was not a cloud in the heaven and no breath of wind relieved the almost suffocating heat of the inert and sultry air. It seemed as though all terrestrial nature lay paralysed in a stupor of terror, waiting for the fire-blast that would wither it into death and ruin. As the sun sank down behind the veil of flame, his disk loomed redly and dullly through it. Long streams of fire, blue and green and orange, darted across the disk and leapt and played round its circumference, until it sank finally out of sight. The little group on the shore of the lake gazed at each other in silence, as it disappeared. Their faces looked wan and ghastly in the awful light that now reigned supreme in the heavens. Most of them turned away in grief and horror too deep for words, and with one last look at earth and sky crept into the caverns, unable any longer to support the terror of the scene. But a few remained, determined to see the fearful drama played out to the end, if they could, and among these were Alan and Alexis, whose duty kept them by the doors, the President and Francis Tremaine, and Alma and Isma, whom nothing could persuade to leave their husband's side. No human eyes had ever beheld so magnificent or so awful a display of celestial splendours as they beheld during the three hours that they stood in the doorway after sunset. The fire-cloud now covered almost the whole heavens, and its enormous nucleus blazed like a gigantic sun down out of the zenith with a heat and radiance that were almost insupportable. Huge masses of flame leapt out continuously, as though hurled from its fiery heart and were projected far beyond its circumference. While the incandescent cloud mass which surrounded it was torn and convulsed by internal commotions which spread out and out in enormous waves of many coloured fires until they disappeared below the horizon. Still, there was neither sound nor breath of wind upon earth, only the awful stillness in which the world waited for the hour of its doom to strike. At last, towards ten o'clock, the water began to lap the threshold of the entrance, and Alan pointing to it said, Come, we must take our last look at the world. It is time to lower the doors. The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a low dull booming sound came echoing down the gorges of Mount Austral. They looked up, and saw huge masses of snow and ice loosened from its upper heights gliding at first slowly, and then more and more swiftly, down towards the valley beneath. A mighty avalanche which, in a few minutes more, would carry irresistible ruin in its path. In with you all, cried Alan, Quick, this is the beginning of the end. The snows are melting, and the waters will be over us in another hour. All but he and Alexis hurried in, and they, grasping the levers on either side of the door, pulled them, and the enormous sheet of steel descended quickly along its grooves, and shut them in from the outer world, upon which chaos was about to fall. End of Chapter 31 Chapter 32 of Olga Romanov by George Griffith This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The She-Wolf to Her Lair In the mysterious revolution of human things, it came about that the only spectator of the closing scene of the tragedy of humanity, who endured and survived its final terrors, was the woman to whom it had been due, that the fire from heaven had fallen upon a world mad with the frenzy and agony of war, instead of sane and calm, with the sanity and calmness of peace and reason. On the issue of the battle of Aria, Olga, and, under her unnaturally acquired influence, the Sultan, had staked the empire of the world and lost it. Before the fight had been raging many hours, even she was forced to admit that Aria was impregnable to any assault that she could deliver. But when the Aryans began to practice the desperate tactics of the second day, it became manifest that nothing but annihilation awaited the invading fleet, outmatched as it was in speed and gun power by the new Aryan warships and the land batteries. With eyes burning with rage and envy, she had watched through her glasses the incomparable Alma floating serenely at her unattainable altitude far above the battle-storm, and she had pictured Alan, her former slave, standing upon her deck, perhaps bitterest thought of all, with his wedded love beside him, and like a very arbiter of war, hurling his destroying lightnings far and wide upon her ships until the supreme moment came in which he would descend, like a very god from the upper air, and, hand in hand with Alma, strike the last terrible blow which would end the last conflict of man with man, and leave neither friend nor foe alive to tell what the issue had been. It would be a glorious end, worthy of him and the splendid traditions of his race, and she loathed herself for the craven fear that had seized upon her in the fateful hour of battle, and made her incapable of challenging the same fate at his hands. Kaelid himself would have done so without hesitation, but she had robbed him of his manhood and debased him, as she had debased every other human being that had fallen under her influence. She had spent nearly the whole of the night of the twenty-second on deck, and when the awful radiance of the fire-cloud was for the last time succeeded by the light of day, even her haughty spirit had at last bowed before the supernatural terrors that were multiplying about her. For the first time since she had brought bloodshed back into the world, a thrill of panic shuddered through her soul, and for the first time she learned the meaning of fear. Then, too, came a longing which for the time being overmastered all other considerations. The elementary animal instinct of self-preservation rose up within her, with irresistible force, and conquered the hate and the ambition whose objects would have vanished when another sun had risen. Her thoughts went back to her old stronghold, in the snowy solitudes of Antarctica, to the deep dark caverns of Mount Terror. Surely those mighty walls of living rock shrouded in eternal ice and snow would give her an asylum in which she could defy the fate that was about to overwhelm humanity. And what then? For a moment an awful vision of the unspeakable loneliness of such a survival amidst the ruins of the world struck such terror to her heart that she almost resolved to head the revenge into the thick of the fight that was still raging round area and die rather than face it. Then the vision passed, and the terrors of the present blotted out the fear of the future. The last sun that the human race would ever see was just rising when she sent for Boris Lysensky, who was still commanding the Revenger under her, and said abruptly, and without even consulting Kaelid, who was standing by her side, there is nothing but death to be found here. We will escape if we can. Head the ship for Mount Terror, and make her fly as she has never flown before. Don't spare either the engines or the power. We must be there before nightfall, if possible. Boris sleutid and bade in silence. An auger turned to Kaelid and said in a tone of weariness and almost of despair. It is no use fighting any longer. The fates themselves are against us, and I, yes, I, have been frightened into belief at last. A shameful confession, if it not. Not shameful, but only reasonable, he replied. All I regret is that you did not believe sooner, and save this last slaughter of these gallant people. What is done is done, she said, with a half regretful glance at the mountains of area, which were now rapidly fading away into the blue distance. It is only a question of sooner, instead of later. Indeed, it seems hardly worth while, even for us to attempt to live, and even if we survive. Only the ruins of the world can be ours, and yet… Yet, Sveta would be life with you, even in a wilderness of death, than destruction that might be eternal parting. Replied Kaelid in low tones that thrilled with passion. Nay, what a dear destiny could man desire than to be the atom of a new world of which you were the Eve. The words of her husband, for Kaelid was her husband now as well as her slave, brought a sudden flush to Alka's face, and this was succeeded by an almost deathly paler. She put up her hand to the broadened circle of gold, which concealed the terrible scar of the wound made by Ellen's bullet, and said almost in a whisper, You and I, yes, you and I may live, we will, but if we do, we must save ourselves alone. And with that she left him abruptly and went to her own room, with the plan of her last crime already shaped in her mind. She was the only woman on board the Revenge. Her maid Anna had been left behind at Alexandria, a maniac driven mad by the universal terror. What of Boris and the 25 men who formed the airship's crew? If they were permitted to survive to the time when there would be no law but might, she would be the one woman in the world. One woman, beautiful and almost defenseless, among those who, though now her servants, would then be ready to slay each other, in the dispute as to which of them should be her master. Such a thought in such a mind as hers could have but one outcome. When the hour for the midday meal arrived, she bade Boris invite the whole crew into the main saloon, saying that, as this might be the last meal that any of them would eat, they would take it together. Then, as though moved by some sudden gracious fancy, she filled for every man with her own hands a glass of the best, and oldest wine that had been reserved for her own use. Kalid, rigid Muslim as he was, refused it, and she only touched it with her lips. But the others drained their glasses and drank death at her hands, even as the Aryans had drunk it in the same fashion and at the same table seven years before. But this time it was fated that her sin should find her out more quickly. Later on, in the afternoon, Boris, to his amazement and alarm, found every man of his crew succumbing to an irresistible drowsiness, and soon this began to affect himself. A terrible thought at once flashed into his ever suspicious mind, fighting against the stupor that was stealing over his senses. He took a deep draft of strong spirit. This conquered the poison for a time, and cleared his intellect sufficiently for him to see what his pitiless mistress had done. And then there rose up in his mind a desperate longing for vengeance on the murderous who had used him and his companions as long as they were useful, and then poisoned them like so many rats. He took out his pistol, and examined it to see if it was charged, and then, with the poison and the spirit fighting in his brain for mastery, he made his way from the engine room to the quarter-deck, where Olga and Caelid were standing, watching with strained, fascinated eyes and faces that looked livid and corpse-like in the unnatural light of the fire-cloud, the long tongues of many-coloured flame that were shooting like so many gigantic serpents down from the zenith, as though they would lick the life-blood out of the world that now lay panting for breath, and paralyzed with fear beneath them. Just as he reached the top of the companion way, a mist swam before Boris's eyes. His brain reeled, and he stumbled forward onto the deck, discharging his pistol aimlessly as he did so. The bullet struck and broke to fragments against the bulwarks. Caelid and Olga turned round to see him lying on his side, with savagely gleaming eyes, livid face, and foam-flect lips trying to raise himself on one hand, and take aim at them with the other. As Caelid sprang forward, Olga's ever-ready pistol came out of her belt. She cried to Caelid to get out of the line of fire, but just as she spoke, Boris made his last effort, and, taking what aim he could, pulled the trigger. Caelid stopped short and clasped his hand to his right side. Then Olga, with a low cry of fury breaking from her white lips through her clenched teeth, sent a bullet through Boris's brain, just as he was struggling to bring his pistol up again. Are you hurt, Caelid?" She asked with a deadly fear at her heart, as she crossed the deck to where he was standing, with his hand still pressed to his side. Yes, he gasped. He has shot me through the lung. Then he coughed, and Olga saw drops of blood on his black beard and moustache. Without wasting any time in useless words, she helped him down into the saloon, and set herself at once to examine and dress his wound. The bullet had entered between the fourth and fifth ribs on the right side, drilling a clean hole through the lower lobe of the right lung, and passed out at the back without touching any bone. With perfect rest and quiet there was nothing to prevent recovery from such a wound. But Olga shuddered, as she thought of its consequences in their present situation. If Caelid succumbed, as he well might do under the unknown terrors and dangers of the night that was now so near, she would have to choose between killing herself beside him, or, if the rock chambers of Mount Terror proved a safe asylum, living makeless and alone, until she starved to death on the wilderness that the world would be when it had passed through its baptism of fire. She satisfied Caelid's whispered request for an explanation of Boris's attempt on their lives, by saying that he had probably made himself drunk in an attempt to fortify himself against the terrors that were multiplying around him. Then she went through the ship and in a few minutes came back and said, I shall have to take the ship to Mount Terror myself. It was not only Boris, for every man of the crew is dead drunk. Think of them making such brutes of themselves at such a time. No. She continued, putting her hand on his shoulder as she saw him make an attempt to rise. You must not move yet. You will want all your strength when we get there. For you will have to regulate the engines, while I am in the Corning Tower. As for these animals, we will leave them to their fate. A couple of hours later, she went on deck to see whether Mount Terror, or at any rate the smoking crest of Mount Erebus, was in sight. For the revenge had now been flying almost long enough to have reached the confines of Antarctica. The speed was, however, so great that nothing was distinctly visible. There was only the flaming heaven above them and a gray blur beneath, so she went to the engine room and slowed down to a hundred miles an hour. Then she helped Caleb to the engineer's seat in front of the controlling levers and took her place in the Corning Tower. She had scarcely been at her post half an hour before she saw the huge white cones of the Twin Mountains of Antarctica shining against the dull gray skies beyond. One of them crowned as she had last seen it by a long stream of smoke that rose almost vertically in the windless air. She signalled to Caleb to reduce the speed, first to fifty, and then to thirty miles an hour, allowing the revenge at the same time to sink gently down towards the ice-covered continent. She crossed the well-remembered bay, in which the narwhal had performed her terrible exploit, swept over the ice wall at an elevation of a hundred feet, swung the ship round and stopped her in front of the great cleft in the side of Mount Terror. No human foot seemed to have trodden the Antarctic solitude from the day she left it to crown herself Zarina of the Russias to this one on which she brought her flagship back with its crew of murdered men to seek her last chance of life, amidst the general doom which she could now almost bring herself to believe she had directly brought upon the world. She ran the revenge slowly into the vast portal that yawned black and deep before her between the snow slopes of the mountain and then, turning on the searchlight, took her along the great gallery which led to the shore of the subterranean lake, and then lowered her for the last time to the earth. Then she and Caleb disembarked. He moved slowly and painfully, and she supported him as well she was able, and watched him with the intense anxiety of a supreme selfishness which had now centered itself upon her, as the one possibility of making her life indurable. Thus did Zarina Olga and Caleb the magnificent conquerors of the earth and sharers of the world throne come back, one wounded almost to death, and the other half distraught with fear and perplexity to take refuge at the uttermost ends of the earth from the assault of the foe that had confounded all their schemes of conquest. Leaving the revenge in the great gallery, she led him to the council chamber, and laid him on the cushions of the luxurious divan on which she had been want to hold her audiences. There she examined and redressed his wound, and then for the next three hours she busied herself bringing supplies of food and drink from the ship, and preparing for the final siege which their last stronghold would so soon have to endure. Then the fancy took her to go once more into the air to take one more look at the world, and the splendours of the fate that was menacing it. Nineteen hours had passed since she gave the order to head the revenge for Mount Terror. Sixteen of these had been consumed in the most rapid flight that the airship had ever accomplished. So fast had the revenge flown westward and southward that the sun had almost seemed to stand still waiting for her journey to be accomplished, but still it had slowly sunk farther and farther down into the luminous mist that now seemed to fill the whole sky. The difference between the longitude of area and Mount Terror had lengthened the last fateful day by nearly five hours, but now the end was very near at hand. And here even on the very confines of the world life had little more than four hours to live. To the north the whole sky was flaming out into indescribable splendours, and the long fire streams radiating from the nucleus now seemed to be literally holding the planet in their clasp. Enormous meteors were bursting out from the heart of the flaming cloud and exploding without a sound in the ever-silent abysses of space. She stood rooted to the spot by the weird and awful glories of the spectacle, and for the time being seemed to forget even Calid and the indescribable dangers that were threatening them both. Instead of being daunted her spirit rose as though in response to the splendours before her. She felt that she was standing upon nature's funeral pyre, watching the conflagration of the world she had ruined. Saving only Calid, there was not another human being within thousands of miles of her, and in her loneliness her soul seemed to expand and rise to a nobility that it had never known before. She saw the utter insignificance and contemptibility of the human strife which had been superseded, and silence by this majestic assault of the primal forces of nature, and for the first time in her life she thought of herself and her sins with the disgust and shame that humbled her in her own eyes to the dust. So she stood and watched, oblivious of everything but the celestial glories above and around her until a rapid series of frightful explosions seemed to run roaring round the whole horizon. She looked up, with shaded eyes towards the zenith. The central mass had suddenly become convulsed, and expanded until it looked as though the whole sky had been transformed into an ocean of fire torn by incessant storms. Huge masses of many colored flame were falling from it in all directions on the devoted earth, and as each of these entered the atmosphere it burst into myriads of fragments which fell in swarms until the blazing sky was literally raining fire over sea and land. The fire cloud had at last invaded the outer confines of the earth's atmosphere. All this while there had been no change in the Antarctic cold of the air, but soon after the first storm of explosions roared out, Olga felt a puff of warm tainted air blow across her face. Then came another, and another, and then she heard what had never been heard before on the slopes of Mount Terra, the sound of running water. The snows were melting, and soon they would come avalanche and deluge. She hurried back into the council chamber, convinced that it was no longer safe to remain in the open air. She made the great bronze doors fast, and covered them with layer after layer of thick heavy curtains. Every other opening into the chamber she closed up as tightly as possible. In the nature of the case they were compelled to trust the supply of air already in it to last them through the ordeal. Then she went and sat down on the divan by Caleb's side, and taking his hand in hers, bent over him, and kissed him on the lips saying, Na, we must wait for life or death together. And so they waited. Waited while the ages old snow and ice melted from the bare black rocks under the fierce breath of the firestorm. While the oceans of flame seeded and roared and eddyed about them, licking up the seas and melted snows, and fighting with them as fire and water had fought since the world began, while the foundations of the southern pole quivered and rocked beneath their feet, and the walls of their refuge quaked and cracked, with the throes of the writhing earth, and cosmos was dissolved into chaos once more.