It was perhaps as strange a dinner party as ever sat down afloat or ash.o.r.e, and it was rendered doubly strange by the fact that the last time they had all sat together most of them suspected, and some of them knew, that this very conflict, which had ended in spite of all disadvantages so completely in favour of the _Nadine_ and her company, was certain to take place, yet very few references were made to the state of active hostilities which had now been practically proclaimed.

Count Valdemar and Sophie were treated on board the _Nadine_ exactly as they had been at Orrel Court. Lord Orrel and Lady Olive were just as they had been at Cowes, and in the Solent. Hardress, who had taken a somewhat perilously large dose of the fair Adelaide's punch, looked pale and seemed rather sleepy, until he had had two or three gla.s.ses of champagne, and then he seemed to brighten up, and began discussing international politics with a frankness and an intimate knowledge which simply astounded their involuntary guests. So far as the party was concerned, there was now no further need for anything like concealment, and not only were the Storage Works discussed, in their full nature and purpose, but even the advent of the French and Russian expeditions at Boothia Land was antic.i.p.ated with what the Count afterwards described to Sophie as brutally disgusting frankness.

Miss Chrysie, eating her strawberries at dessert as daintily as though her hands had never been within a mile of a Maxim gun, chatted and chaffed just as she had been wont to do at Orrel Court, and the president talked gunnery and machinery with the captain and Mr M'Niven, who had been invited to join the party; and finally, when even the marquise came into dessert on Lady Olive's pressing invitation, all that she heard about her deliberate attempt to drug the whole ship's company was from Lord Orrel, who rose as she entered, and said in just such a tone as he might have used in the drawing-room at Orrel Court:

"My dear marquise, I am delighted to see that you have recovered from the same mysterious indisposition that has affected all of us. I am really afraid that there must have been something wrong with the recipe for the punch _a le Grand Monarque_, or perhaps it was not intended for general use. However, as we are all happily recovered, we need not trouble ourselves any further about that."

Adelaide entered instantly into the spirit of the comedy that was being played, and she replied:

"Ah, my lord, it is so kind of you not to blame me! Believe me, I am desolated, and have been very nearly killed, and my poor aunt believes too that she is going to die. It is my last performance at punch-making, for I have torn the horrible recipe up and thrown it into the sea."

"I am rather sorry to hear that, marquise," said Hardress, looking at her with a cold, steady stare, which at once enraged and infinitely saddened her; for it proved that the empire, which until a few hours ago she had hoped to gain over him, and through him the world, was now only a dream never to be realised. Still, she kept herself under command marvellously, and greeted the count and Sophie just as though the _Nadine_ had been lying off Cowes instead of being lashed to the _Vlodoya_ in mid-Atlantic, with the steam winches rattling and roaring over their heads, emptying the Russian yacht's bunkers into the _Nadine's_ as fast as her own crew and what was left of her enemy's could do it. In short, a most unexpectedly pleasant evening was spent by everybody.

Coffee and cigars and cigarettes were taken up into the smoking-room, which was well to windward of the coal dust. Adelaide went to the piano and played brilliantly. Then she accompanied Sophie in quaint and tenderly-touching Russian folk-songs. Then Miss Chrysie sang c.o.o.n songs and accompanied herself; and Hardress, on her suggestion, made with a wicked humour in her dancing eyes, recite Kipling's "Rhyme of the Three Sealers" to her own piano accompaniment. They both did it very well, and more than one person in the cosy little smoking-room could have killed them for it.

Nothing occurred to give the count and Sophie or Adelaide and the innocent Madame de Bourbon any idea that they were really prisoners until they retired for the night. Then the chief steward knocked at the count's door and asked if he wanted anything more. Mrs Evans did the same for Sophie and the marquise, and then the doors of the staterooms were locked. They were unlocked again at seven the next morning, and, after baths and early coffee, Hardress invited his guests on to the bridge to watch the end of the _Vlodoya_.

During the night she had been completely stripped of everything that could be useful to her captor. Every pound of coal was taken out of her bunkers. The two little quick-firers had been transferred with all their ammunition to the _Nadine_. Her four boats, amply provisioned and watered, were comfortably filled with such of her officers and crew as Chrysie's Maxim volley had left alive. There was a southward breeze, and in forty-eight hours at the outside they were certain to be picked up, either by a liner or a cargo boat, and plenty of money had been given them to pay their pa.s.sages either to Europe or America.

When they had hoisted their sails and began to bear away towards the steamer-track, the _Nadine_ cast off from the _Vlodoya_, her screws began to revolve, and the president got his gun loaded.

"I reckon we might have a little gun practice, and see how far this pea-shooter really will carry," he said, looking up at the bridge, with a smile in which neither Sophie nor her father found very much humour. "Will you make it five miles, captain?"

The captain rang for full speed.

The _Nadine_ sprang forward with a readiness which showed how utterly futile the plot to cripple her had been, and in a few minutes the motionless hull of the _Vlodoya_ was a white speck on the water. Then she stopped and swung round. The president adjusted his automatic sights, waited till she rose on the swell, and let go. There was a hiss and a whizz, and then, where the speck was a bright flash blazed out. Two more sh.e.l.ls followed in quick succession, and as the last flash blazed out, Count Valdemar took his gla.s.ses down from his eyes and looked at Hardress, and said, with a touch of bitterness in his tone:

"She has gone! That is a wonderful gun, viscount."

"Yes," replied Hardress, dryly. "That is a twelve-pounder. We have some hundred-pounders at the works, as well as a new weapon which may interest your excellency very much. It destroys without striking. If the French and Russian North Polar Expedition should chance to pay us a visit, you may perhaps see them both in action."

"And now, president," he went on, "I suppose we may as well shape our course for Boothia Land."

"There is nothing more to wait for that I know of, viscount," he replied. And so the _Nadine's_ head was swung round to the north-west, her engines were put to their full power, and so she began her voyage to that desolate spot of earth which was soon to become the seat of the world-empire.

CHAPTER XXIV

Within ten days of the sinking of the _Vlodoya_ Europe was electrified by the news, published far and wide through the English and Continental press, of what amounted to a pitched battle between two armed private yachts in mid-Atlantic. As may well be imagined, the strange narrative of the officers and sailors of the _Vlodoya_ lost nothing either in the telling to the interviewers or in the reproduction in the newspapers.

The boats' crews had been picked up, about thirty-six hours after the sinking of the Russian yacht, by a French liner, which took them to le Havre. The officers had taken the greatest precautions to prevent the men from speaking too freely, but it was no use. There were two journalists, one an Englishman and the other an American, on board the boat, and they agreed to divide the sensation between themselves and their two countries. Both were in the service of wealthy journals, and they bribed as freely as they did unscrupulously, with the result that, in addition to the general gossip of the ship, which was more or less accurate, they each possessed a fairly comprehensive narrative of what had happened on the high seas between the _Nadine_ and the _Vlodoya_, both of which were speeding over the wires to America and Canada within half-an-hour of the liner's arrival at le Havre.

But the Englishman did even better than this, for he practically kidnapped the third engineer of the _Vlodoya_, who could speak very good French, chartered a special steamer to Southampton, pumped him absolutely dry on the pa.s.sage, and turned up at midnight at the office of his paper with a column and a half of vividly-written description of the most sensational event that had taken place on the high seas since the affair of the _Trent_ during the American war.

The presses were stopped, the matter was set up with lightning speed, and by the next morning that journalist had achieved the biggest scoop of the twentieth century. The news agencies immediately wired extracts all over the Continent, and meanwhile the news had been leaking out through other sources in France, for pa.s.sengers will talk, and the captain was bound to make his formal report as to the picking up of the castaways; wherefore, within twenty-four hours the whole Continental press was teeming with interviews, more or less authentic, leading articles, and notes on the subject of this astounding occurrence. Two Russian newspapers published a few meagre details, and were promptly suppressed.

The _Globe_, in a leader on what it termed the "astonishing intelligence published by a morning contemporary," put the matter very concisely, and with its usual clearness and insight into foreign affairs.

"We have here," said the writer, "not only one of the most astonishing, but one of the most significant incidents of modern times--an incident which, almost incredible as it is, is nevertheless the more significant when taken in conjunction with other contemporary events, of which our readers have been kept constantly informed. It is not customary for either Russian or English private yachts to carry guns, and it is somewhat unusual for a Russian yacht, owned by a well-known Russian ex-Minister of State, to start, as we know the _Vlodoya_ did, from Southampton on a cruise to the Baltic, stop at Cherbourg, and then turn up in the middle of the Atlantic. But what is the world to think when this yacht, the property of a n.o.bleman high in favour at the Court of St Petersburg, deliberately opens fire on a yacht owned by an English n.o.bleman, whose guest the owner of the _Vlodoya_ had been but a few days before? Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that the English yacht replied in kind; crippled her opponent, took the owner and his daughter prisoners, set the crew adrift, sank her adversary, and vanished. Viscount Branston's yacht was, we understand, bound for Halifax, with two distinguished French ladies on board. A cable just to hand informs us that nothing has been heard of her, although she should have arrived there nearly a week ago. With some reluctance we feel compelled to ask whether there is any connection between this extraordinary occurrence and the mysterious electrical works which, as is well known, are being constructed, at enormous expense, by a syndicate of which both Viscount Branston and his father, the Earl of Orrel, are prominent members. There have been many strange and wild rumours current about this enterprise within the last few months, and we confess that this almost incredible incident appears to lend some countenance to them.

"In the same connection, it is necessary to call attention to the fact that, just as this enterprise was approaching completion, France and Russia both equipped a so-called scientific expedition for the purpose of once more attempting to force a pa.s.sage to the North Pole. We do not profess to have any inside knowledge as to these mysterious proceedings, but we confess that we should not be greatly surprised if it would not be more correct to read 'magnetic pole' for 'north pole'.

It is impossible to see anything other than an international significance. n.o.blemen of different nationalities do not nowadays go out on to the high seas to fight naval duels to arrange their private differences; wherefore it appears that either the _Vlodoya_ was a common pirate outside the law of nations, and yet owned by a Russian ex-Minister, who was on board when the act of piracy was committed, or she was a privateer acting under the licence of the Russian Government. We, in common with the whole civilised world, shall await with the utmost anxiety the immediate development of this wholly unparalleled state of affairs."

The world waited for about a week, and heard nothing. The British Foreign Office made its usual timid and tentative representation, and received the usual snub, to the effect that the Russian Government was investigating the matter as fully as possible, but had so far only arrived at the fact that the English yacht fired first.

But the plots and counterplots and the steady preparations which had been going on for the working out or the defeating of the great scheme were now about to bear fruit, and the world was not to be lacking in sensations such as it had never experienced before.

No sooner did the German Government learn the story of the duel between the _Nadine_ and the _Vlodoya_ than its secret agents began to put two and two together, and make their representations accordingly.

Ex-Captain Victor Fargeau was known to have been an intimate friend of Adelaide de Conde, who was a guest on board the _Nadine_, and, further, to have been in close communication with Count Valdemar, the owner of the _Vlodoya_. He had left his country, taken up his residence in Paris, and had been proved to be in close touch with General Ducros. All this was significant enough, but when the cleverest of all the German agents in Paris found out that ex-Captain Victor Fargeau, late of the German Army, had been appointed to the scientific command of the French Polar Expedition, darkness became light, and a peremptory demand was sent from Berlin to Paris for his immediate extradition on the previous charge of high treason.

To this Paris returned a polite but uncompromising refusal, and Berlin promptly said that if the expedition sailed with ex-Captain Fargeau on board, a German squadron would stop it and take him off. To this France replied by mobilising the Northern Squadron and ordering the Admiral in command to escort the expedition to sea and protect it against a.s.sault at all hazards. Paris also sent Berlin a curt Note intimating that if the threat were carried out it would be taken as a declaration of war.

Another Note arrived at Berlin about the same time from Petersburg, informing the German Kaiser that these French and Russian Polar Expeditions formed a joint enterprise on the part of the two countries, and that any act hostile to the one would be considered hostile to the other. The Note also plainly hinted that, considering the tremendous nature of the issues involved by a breach of the international peace, such a trivial matter as the extradition of a person accused of treason could not possibly under the circ.u.mstances afford a valid reason for what would be to all intents and purposes an act of war.

Within twenty-four hours a powerful French squadron was manoeuvring off the mouth of the Kiel Ca.n.a.l, just out of range of the forts; the French Polar Expedition, with Victor Fargeau on board, was making its way at full speed down the English Channel; the Russian expedition, headed by the _Ivan the Terrible_, pa.s.sed the North Cape on its way to the coast of Greenland; and four millions of Russians and Frenchmen of all arms were ma.s.sed on the eastern and western frontier of Germany. At the same moment Kaiser Wilhelm called upon his brother sovereigns of Austria and Italy, and the Triple Alliance stood to arms by land and sea. In a word, the European powder-magazine was lying wide open, and the firing of a single shot would have turned it into a volcano.

Still the weeks dragged on, till the tension became almost unendurable. According to an old North of England saying, "One was afraid and t'other daren't start," the risks were so colossal.

Great Britain meanwhile kept her own counsel, and went on sweeping up the remnant of the rebel Boers in South Africa. The only precaution she had taken was to place every effective ship in the Navy in commission.

It was at this juncture that Europe experienced a new sensation. In one memorable week English, American, French, German, Austrian, and Italian liners from American ports brought packages of the strangest proclamation that ever was issued, and in the mail-bags of the same boats there were similar communications addressed to all the Chancelleries of Europe, and these were of a character to shake the official mind to its very foundations, as in fact they ultimately did.

The communications, both public and private, took the form of a modest circular dated from the offices of the International Electrical Power and Storage Trust, Buffalo, N.Y. Those which were addressed to the crowned heads of Europe were accompanied by autograph letters respectfully requesting the personal attention of the monarch to the contents of the circular. The circular ran as follows:--

The Secretary of the International Electrical Power and Storage Trust is directed by his Board of Managers to inform the ruling sovereigns and peoples of Europe of the following facts, and to request their most serious attention to the same:--

_A._ The Directors of the Trust view with great concern the formidable military and naval preparations which have lately been made by the Powers of Europe. In their opinion, these preparations point to a near outbreak of hostilities on such an immense scale that not only must a vast expenditure of blood and money be inevitable, but the commerce of the world will be most injuriously affected.

_B._ This Trust is a business concern. Its Directors have no international sympathies whatever, and they don't want war. At the same time, if the Powers of Europe are determined to fight, the Trust will permit them to do so on payment of a capitation fee of the equivalent in the money of each respective country of one dollar per head of effective fighting men in the field per week--fees to be paid into the Bank of England within seven days after the commencement of hostilities. A liberal allowance will be made for killed and wounded if official returns are promptly sent to the London office of the Trust, 56_b_ Old Broad Street, London, E.C.

_C._ Prompt attention to the foregoing paragraphs is earnestly requested for the following reasons:--(1) The Trust has acquired control of the electrical forces of the Northern Hemisphere, and is, therefore, in a position to make all the operations of civilised life, including warfare, possible or impossible, as its commercial arrangements may demand. (2) One week from the date above will be given for the Powers of Europe to settle their differences without fighting or to accede to the terms offered by the Trust. Failing this, the Northern Hemisphere, with certain exceptions, will be deprived of its electrical force. The consequences of this will be that cables and telegraphs will cease to work, and all machinery constructed of iron or steel will break down if operated. Railroads will become useless, and bridges of metallic construction will collapse as soon as any considerable weight is placed upon them.

_D._ Finally, I am directed to state that, in addition to these results, it is unhappily probable that the withdrawal of electrical force will very seriously affect the health of the populations of the Northern Hemisphere. Death-rates will very largely increase, and it is probable that a new disease unknown to medical science will make its appearance. It is expected to be fatal in every case, if the terms of the Trust are not complied with, but it will first affect the young and the weakly. It is, therefore, to be hoped that considerations of humanity, if not of policy, will induce the peoples and the Governments of Europe to accede without delay to the conditions which I have the honour to submit.

As may well be imagined, this seemingly preposterous circular was received either with derision or contemptuous silence in every capital of Europe save Paris. There its import was only too well-known, but at the same time it was impossible for France alone among the nations to acknowledge herself the va.s.sal of the Trust. In Petersburg something of the truth was known; but the Government, confident of the success of the two expeditions, just dropped the communication into the official waste-paper basket and went on with its naval and military preparations.

Everything depended upon the six vessels which were steaming towards Boothia Land reaching their goal and accomplishing their mission. If they succeeded, Europe would be plunged into the bloodiest war that had been fought since the days of Napoleon. If they failed, the war would be stopped by an invisible, but irresistible, force, and humanity would be astounded by the accomplishment of such a miracle of science as it had never seen before.

CHAPTER XXV

Every day after the issue of the circular the wire which connected the Storage Works with Winnipeg was kept hot with the news of what was going on in the far-away civilised world, but for some time all that was heard in that land of unsetting suns only amounted to this: Everywhere the Press of Europe had received the p.r.o.nouncement of the Trust with incredulous derision. It had, in fact, provided professional humourists and caricaturists with quite a new field of industry.