The World Peril of 1910 - George Chetwynd Griffith

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to get an oar out to their comrade just in time, and then haul him into the boat, which was now about fifty yards away; so as soon as the girl had got her breath they swam with her to the boat, and lifted her hands on to the gunwale.

      "If you wouldn't mind, sir, picking up those oars," said the Englishman, "I will get the young lady into the boat, and then we can row back."

      Castellan gave him another look which said as plainly as words: "Well, I suppose she's your prize for the present," and swam off for the oars. With the eager help of the boys, who were now very frightened and very penitent, the Englishman soon had the girl in the boat; and so it came about that an adventure which might well have deprived America of one of her most beautiful and brilliant heiresses, resulted in nothing more than a ducking for two men and one girl, a wet, but somehow not altogether unpleasant walk, and a slight chill from which she had quite recovered the next morning.

      The after consequences of that race for the rescue were of course, quite another matter.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      On the first day of July, 1908, a scene which was destined to become historic took place in the great Lecture Theatre in the Imperial College at Potsdam. It was just a year and a few days after the swimming race between John Castellan and the Englishman in Clifden Bay.

      There were four people present. The doors were locked and guarded by two sentries outside. The German Emperor, Count Herold von Steinitz, Chancellor of the Empire, Field-Marshal Count Friedrich von Moltke, grandson of the great Organiser of Victory, and John Castellan, were standing round a great glass tank, twenty-five feet long, and fifteen broad, supported on a series of trestles. The tank was filled with water up to within about six inches of the upper edge. The depth was ten feet. A dozen models of battleships, cruisers and torpedo craft were floating on the surface of the water. Five feet under the surface, a grey, fish-shaped craft with tail and fins, almost exactly resembling those of a flying fish, was darting about, now jumping forward like a cat pouncing on a bird, now drawing back, and then suddenly coming to a standstill. Another moment, it sank to the bottom, and lay there as if it had been a wreck. The next it darted up to the surface, cruised about in swift curves, turning in and out about the models, but touching none.

      Every now and then John Castellan went to a little table in the corner of the room, on which there was a machine something like a typewriter, and touched two or three of the keys. There was no visible connection between them—the machine and the tank—but the little grey shape in the water responded instantly to the touch of every key.

      "That, I hope, will be enough to prove to your Majesty that as submarine the Flying Fish is quite under control. Of course the real Flying Fish will be controlled inside, not from outside."

      "There is no doubt about the control," said the Kaiser. "It is marvellous, and I think the Chancellor and the Field Marshal will agree with me in that."

      "Wonderful," said the Chancellor.

      "A miracle," said the Field Marshal, "if it can only be realised."

      "There is no doubt about that, gentlemen," said Castellan, going back to the machine. "Which of the models would your Majesty like to see destroyed first?"

      The Kaiser pointed to the model of a battleship which was a very good imitation of one of the most up-to-date British battleships.

      "We will take that one first," he said.

      Castellan smiled, and began to play the keys. The grey shape of the Flying Fish dropped to the bottom of the tank, rose, and seemed all at once to become endowed with human reason, or a likeness of it, which was so horrible that even the Kaiser and his two chiefs could hardly repress a shudder. It rose very slowly, circled among the floating models about two feet under the surface and then, like an animal smelling out its prey, it made a dart at the ship which the Kaiser had indicated, and struck it from underneath. They saw a green flash stream through the water, and the next moment the model had crumbled to pieces and sank.

      "Donner-Wetter!" exclaimed the Chancellor, forgetting in his wonder that he was in the presence of His Majesty, "that is wonderful, horrible!"

      "Can there be anything too horrible for the enemies of the Fatherland, Herr Kanztler," said the Kaiser, looking across the tank at him, with a glint in his eyes, which no man in Germany cares to see.

      "I must ask pardon, your Majesty," replied the Chancellor. "I was astonished, indeed, almost frightened—frightened, if your Majesty will allow me to say so, for the sake of Humanity, if such an awful invention as that becomes realised."

      "And what is your opinion, Field Marshal?" asked the Kaiser with a laugh.

      "A most excellent invention, your Majesty, provided always that it belongs to the Fatherland."

      "Exactly," said the Kaiser. "As that very intelligent American officer, Admiral Mahan, has told us, the sea-power is world-power, and there you have sea-power; but that is not the limit of the capabilities of Mr. Castellan's invention, according to the specifications which I have read, and on the strength of which I have asked him to give us this demonstration of its powers. He calls it, as you know, the Flying Fish. So far you have seen it as a fish. Now, Mr. Castellan, perhaps you will be kind enough to let us see it fly."

      "With pleasure, your Majesty," replied the Irishman, "but, in case of accident, I must ask you and the Chancellor and the Field Marshal to stand against the wall by the door there. With your Majesty's permission, I am now going to destroy the rest of the fleet."

      "The rest of the fleet!" exclaimed the Field Marshal. "It is impossible."

      "We shall see, Feldherr!" laughed the Kaiser. "Meanwhile, suppose we come out of the danger zone."

      The three greatest men in Germany, and perhaps on the Continent of Europe, lined up with their backs to the wall at the farther end of the room from the tank, and the Irishman sat down to his machine. The keys began to click rapidly, and they began to feel a tenseness in the air of the room. After a few seconds they would not have been surprised if they had seen a flash of lightning pass over their heads. The Flying Fish had sunk to the bottom of the tank, and backed into one of the corners. The keys of the machine clicked louder and faster. Her nose tilted upwards to an angle of about sixty degrees. The six-bladed propeller at her stem whirled round in the water like the flurry of a whale's fluke in its death agony. Her side-fins inclined upwards, and, like a flash, she leapt from the water, and began to circle round the room.

      The Kaiser shut his teeth hard and watched. The Chancellor opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, and shut it again. The Field Marshal stroked his moustache slowly, and followed the strange shape fluttering about the room. It circled twice round the tank, and then crossed it. A sharp click came from the machine, something fell from the body of the Flying Fish into the tank. There was a dull sound of a smothered explosion. For a moment the very water itself seemed aflame, then it boiled up into a mass of seething foam. Every one of the models was overwhelmed and engulfed at the same moment. Castellan got up from the machine, caught the Flying Fish in his hand, as it dropped towards the water, took it to the Kaiser, and said:

      "Is your Majesty convinced? It is quite harmless now."

      "God's thunder, yes!" said the War Lord of Germany, taking hold of the model. "It is almost superhuman."

      "Yes," said the Chancellor, "it is damnable!"

      "I," said the Field Marshal, drily, "think it's admirable, always supposing that Mr. Castellan is prepared to place this mysterious invention at the disposal of his Majesty."

      "Yes," said the Kaiser,

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