CHAPTER V
_Monsters of the Deep_
"Gentlemen," said Prester Kleig as he entered the Secret Room, where satthe scientists and inventive geniuses of the Americas, "we haven't muchtime, and I shall waste but little of it. Moyen is ready to strike, ifhe hasn't already done so, as I believe. We will see in a matter ofseconds. Professor Maniel, we shall need, first of all, your apparatusfor returning the vibratory images of events which have transpiredwithin the last thirty-six hours.
"I wish to show those of you who failed to see it the sinking of the_Stellar_, on which I was a passenger and, I believe, the onlysurvivor."
Professor Maniel strangely mouse-like save for the ponderous dome of hisforehead, stepped away from the circular table without a word. He hadinvented the machine in question, and he was inordinately proud of it.Through its use he could pick up the sounds, and the pictures, of eventswhich had transpired down the past centuries, from the tinkling of thecymbals of Miriam to all the horror of the conflict men had called theGreat War, simply by drawing back from the ether, as the sounds fledoutward through space, those sounds and vibrations which he needed.
His science was an exact one, more carefully exact even than themeasurement of the speed of light, taking into consideration thedispersion of sound and movement, and the element of time.
The interior of the Secret Room became dark as Maniel labored with hisminute machinery. Only behind the screen on the wall in rear of thetable was there light.
* * * * *
The voice of Maniel began to drone as he thought aloud.
"There is a matter of but a few minutes difference in time betweenWashington and the last recorded location of the _Stellar_. The sinkingoccurred at ten-thirty last evening you say, Kleig? Ah, yes, I have it!Watch carefully, gentlemen!"
So silent were the Secret Agents one could not even have heard thebreathing of one of them, for on the screen, misty at first, butbecoming moment by moment bolder of outline, was the face of astorm-tossed sea. The liner was slower in forming, and was slightly outof focus for a second or two.
"Ah," said Professor Maniel. "There it is!"
Through the sound apparatus came the roaring and moaning of a storm atsea. On the screen the _Stellar_ rose high on the waves, dropped intothe trough, while spumes of black smoke spread rearward on the watersfrom her spouting funnels. Figures were visible on her decks, figureswhich seemed carved in bronze.
In the prow, every expression on his face plainly visible, stood PresterKleig himself, and as his picture appeared he was in the act of turning.
"Now," said Kleig himself, there in the Secret Room, "look off to theleft, gentlemen, a mile from the _Stellar_!"
A rustling sound as the scientists shifted in their places.
* * * * *
They all saw it, and a gasp burst from their lips as though at a signal.For, as the _Stellar_ seemed about to plunge off the shadowed screeninto the Secret Room, a flying thing had risen out of the sea--anairplane with a bulbous body and queerly slanting wings.
At the same time, out of the mouth of the pictured figure of PresterKleig, clear and agonized as the tones of a bell struck in frenzy, thewords:
"Great God! Lower the boats! Lower the boats! For God's sake lower theboats!"
In the Secret Room the real Prester Kleig spoke again.
"When the black streak leaves the nose of the plane, after it hassubmerged, Professor Maniel," said Kleig softly, "slow your mechanism sothat we can see the whole thing in detail."
There came a grunted affirmative from Professor Maniel.
The nose of the pictured plane tilted over, diving down for the surfaceof the sea.
"Now!" snapped Kleig. "Don't wait!"
Instantly the moving pictures on the screen reduced their speed, and theplane appeared to stop its sudden seaward plunge and to drop down aslightly as a feather. The wings of the thing moved forward slowly,folding into the body of the dropping plane.
"They fold forward," said Kleig quietly, "so that the speed of the planein the take-off will snap them _backward_ into position for flying!"
* * * * *
No one spoke, because the explanation was so obvious.
Slowly the airplane went down to the surface of the sea, with scarcely aplume of spindrift leaping back after she had struck. She dropped to tenfeet below the surface of the water, a hundred yards off the starboardbeam of the _Stellar_, her blunt nose pointing squarely at the side ofthe doomed liner.
"Now," said Kleig hoarsely, "watch closely, for God's sake!"
The liner rose and fell slowly. Out of the nose of the plane, which hadnow become a tiny submarine, started a narrow tube of black, oddly likethe sepia of a giant squid. Straight toward the side of the liner itwent. Above the rail the Secret Agents could see the pictured form ofPrester Kleig, hand upraised. The black streak reached the side of the_Stellar_.
It touched the metal plates, spreading upon impact, growing, enlarging,to right and left, upward and downward, and where it touched the_Stellar_ the black of it seemed to erase that portion of the ship. Inthe slow motion every detail was apparent. At regular speed the blottingout of the _Stellar_ would have been instantaneous.
Kleig saw himself rise slowly from the vanished rail, turning over andover, going down to the sea. He almost closed his eyes, bit his lips tokeep back the cries of terror when he saw the others aboard the linerrise, turn over and over, and fly in all directions like jackstraws in ahigh wind.
* * * * *
The ship was erased from beneath passengers and crew, and passengers andcrew fell into the sea. Out of the depths, from all directions, came thestarving denizens of the sea--starving because liners now were so few.
"That's enough of that, Professor," snapped Kleig. "Now jump aheadapproximately eight hours, and see if you can pick up that aero-subafter it dropped me on the Jersey Coast."
The picture faded out quickly, the screaming of doomed human beings,already hours dead, called back to apparent living by the genius ofManiel died away, and for a space the screen was blank.
Then, the sea again, storm-tossed as before, shifting here and there asManiel sought in the immensity of sea and sky for the thing he desired.
"Two hundred miles south by east of New York City," he droned. "There itis, gentlemen!"
They all saw it then, in full flight, eight thousand feet above thesurface of the Atlantic, traveling south by east at a dizzy rate ofspeed.
"Note," said Kleig, "that it keeps safely to the low altitudes, in orderto escape the notice of regular air traffic."
No one answered.
The eyes of the Secret Agents were on that flashing, bulbous-bodiedplane of the strange wings. It appeared to be heading directly for someobjective which must be reached at top speed.
* * * * *
For fifteen minutes the flight continued. Then the plane tilted over anddived, and at an altitude still of three thousand feet, the wingsslashed forward, clicking into their notches in the sides of the bulbousbody, with a sound like the ratchets on subway turnstiles, and, holdingtheir breath, the Secret Agents watched it plummet down to the sea. Itwas traveling with terrific speed when it struck, yet it entered thewater with scarcely a splash.
Then, for the first time, an audible gasp, as that of one person, camefrom the lips of the Secret Agents. For now they could see the objectiveof the aero-sub. A monster shadow in the water, at a depth of fivehundred feet. A shadow which, as Maniel manipulated his instruments,became a floating underwater fortress, ten times the size of anysubmarine known to the Americas.
Sporting like porpoises about this held-in-suspension fortress weremyriads of other aero-subs, maneuvering by squadrons and flights,weaving in and out like schools of fish. The plane which had bournePrester Kleig churned in between two of the formations, and vanishedinto the side of the motionless monster of the d
eep.
The striking of a deep sea bell, muted by tons and tons of water,sounded in the Secret Room.
"Don't turn it off, Maniel," said Kleig. "There's more yet!"
And there was, for the sound of the bell was a signal. The aero-subs,darting outward from the side of the floating fortress like fish dartingout of seaweed, were plunging up toward the surface of the Atlantic.Breathlessly the Secret Agents watched them.
They broke water like flying fish, and their wings shot backward fromtheir notches in the myriad bulbous bodies to click into place in flyingposition as the scores of aero-subs took the air above the invisiblehiding places of the mother submarine.
* * * * *
At eight thousand feet the aero-subs swung into battle formation and, asthough controlled by word of command, they maneuvered there like onevast machine of a central control--beautiful as the flight of swallows,deadly as anything that flew.
The Secret Agents swept the cold sweat from their brows, and sighs ofterror escaped them all.
At that moment came the voice, loud in the Secret Room, which Kleig atleast immediately recognized:
"Well, gentlemen, are you satisfied that resistance is futile?"
And Kleig whispered the name, over and over again.
"Moyen! Moyen!"
It was Prester Kleig, Master of the Secret Room, who was the first toregain control after the nerve-numbing question which, asked in farMadagascar, was heard by the Agents in the Secret Room.
"No!" he shouted. "No! No! Moyen, in the end we will beat you!"
Only silence answered, but deep in the heart of Prester Kleig sounded aburst of sardonic laughter--the laughter of Moyen, half-god of Asia.Then the voice again:
"The attack is beginning, gentlemen! Within an hour you will havefurther evidence of the might of Moyen!"