Limanora the island of progress
the air. Continuous torrents of lead and iron streamed from above onto
their decks, making those of their gunners that survived helpless and
inert. And when their captains invented methods of pointing their guns
at the aërial ships and of floating fire-kites against them to set them
on fire, then the most tremendous engines of the navy in the air were
brought into train; and with appalling explosions the Aleofanian ships
and their crews vanished in atoms.
No such destruction of a nation’s war material had ever occurred in
the history of the archipelago. The Aleofanian marine force was swept
from the face of the sea. One or two other islands were bold enough to
attempt the struggle with the new power, but with the same disastrous
results to themselves. Over the whole archipelago except its central
island the air-fleet passed, inspiring terror and reducing the peoples
to servitude. It was the same all-conquering story as was told under
Choktroo’s leadership.
And now the Broolyian army and people were willing to worship the maker
and manipulator of these balloons as a god. He had plenty of ambition;
but he was by nature and acquirement only a mechanician and not a born
leader of men. He had none of the self-confidence made monstrous by
success, or of the unscrupulousness, that forges the masterful will.
He did love power, but he hesitated before those audacious measures
which give a conqueror the highest vantage-ground. He yearned to rule
widely. But he had not the self-mastery and the leavening imagination
which secure command over the minds of human aggregations. He was
but an average nature with complete mastery over the newest and most
masterful invention.
The Broolyian monarch saw the peril of his too great success, and
set the stranger and his balloons aside in time to let the popular
enthusiasm cool. Alone with his fleet and his army the king completed
the round of conquests. He knew that when the power of Aleofane and
one or two other chief islands was broken, there was nothing to fear
from the others, and his task, though brilliant, was easy. He took care
that there were several great and sanguinary battles that put heart
and pride into his soldiers and sailors. Thus by the time the war was
finished, the newcomer and his appalling fleet were almost forgotten.
But the monarch himself did not forget them. He knew that the climax of
this new era of national conquest and pride was certain to come soon.
Never had the Broolyians been continuously successful in war without
losing their traditional fear of the isle of devils, and demanding its
subjugation. He set his house in order against the day of vainglory.
He would develop his new method of warfare. He made the stranger
again his commander-in-chief, urging him on towards the increase of
the aërial fleet and of its terrorising weapons. Then, fearing from
his knowledge of the past that there was little chance of success, he
gave him complete command of the expedition, so that all the blame of
failure should be on the shoulders of another. In order to complete the
contrast, he kept rebellion smouldering in one or two of the adjacent
islands, and took care that it broke out simultaneously with the attack
upon the isle of devils.
Ignorant of the conditions he had to meet, and puffed up by his past
successes, the stranger thought that all he had to do was to add to the
number of his fleet and the deadliness of his weapons. We saw him set
out with banners flying amid the applause and enthusiasm of the people,
whilst the wily king led off his own forces, quietly to embark from
an opposite shore of the country against the rebels of neighbouring
coasts. Success seemed to follow the aërial navy, for favouring winds
bore them swiftly and majestically over the horizon out of the range of
Broolyian vision. For myself, as I sat at an idrovamolan, I feared the
strange new torrential guns and the showers of deadly explosives that
would rain down from these aërial ships, and my heart sank as I saw
them sail like great vultures nearer and nearer to their prey.
But my compatriots were tranquil and free from all anxiety. Everything
was really in readiness and they were only awaiting the exact moment
for action. It came, and the huge balloons fell suddenly away before
the blast from the lilaran, like a flock of storm-beaten birds. I could
see them struggling, many of them half disabled, to stand up to the
wind. But it was vain; they whirled like snowflakes before an arctic
tempest. Their helms became entangled in their snapped cordage, and I
could see their guns roll and pitch with fatal effect upon the crews,
till from many the suicidal weapons were tumbled overboard into the sea
below.
Yet the expedition by no means acknowledged itself defeated. Guided by
some experienced Broolyian adviser the admiral of the fleet changed its
formation. Evidently from knowledge that the blast from Lilaroma could
play upon only one point at once, he divided his air-navy into three
squadrons, and making the central face the blast, he sent the other
two in different directions round the island. He thought that these
two would be able to bring their explosives and guns to bear upon the
lilaran by this flank movement. It was as unsuccessful as his other
efforts. Both sections came almost within firing distance of the shore,
when suddenly their gaseous spheres were seen to collapse. A slight and
silent flash was all that told whence the disaster had come. Electric
rockets had issued from magnetic ejectors of great power and almost
invisibly punctured the spherical supporter of each airship.
It seemed as if the whole of the three squadrons would soon be in
the sea, and with the weight of their war material they were certain
to sink to the bottom and carry all their crews with them. But the
invaders promptly threw overboard their weighty cargoes, and with their
usual humanity the Limanorans now did their best to save their enemies.
The punctures in the balloons were so minute that it would take some
time to exhaust them. So the lilaran sent its blast underneath them and
buoyed them up like thistledown, at the same time blowing the three
sections of the navy off in different directions. It was amusing to
watch the alternate rise and fall of the various airships as it turned
its blast from one squadron to another, like a game of battledoor and
shuttlecock played by giant jugglers. The warriors in the cars kept
crouching in panic and holding onto the cordage, as they rose or fell
in the air upon the billows of wind. Their cars danced and leaped and
jerked like corks in an eddy where currents meet, and they were too
panic-stricken or too paralysed with terror to see that with all the
tumult of their movements they were gradually approaching solid earth.
We saw each squadron land on the shores of a separate island; and after
their terrible voyage the crews threw themselves upon the earth and
seemed to clutch it, in fear lest they should be torn again from its
sweet anchorage into the warring whirlpools of the upper air.
After a few days they collected their wits and the shattered fragments
of their air-fleet, and, hiring boats from the islanders, sailed
homewards. As they entered the main harbour of Broolyi crestfallen and
dispirited, the army and fleet of the king were returning from their
victories with triumphal music and with banners flying. The contrast
was striking, and set the monarch more firmly on his throne for another
generation.
Yet matters could not remain where they were. The defeat of the new
methods of warfare stirred hope in the breasts of the conquered
peoples; and muffled sounds of rebellion came from many of the islands.
The king knew that he must make some other move, and held long councils
with the defeated balloonist.
The result of the conferences soon became manifest. The stranger had
seen that his aërial fleet was useless against tempests and electric
missiles, such as the isle of demons had command of, and he willingly
handed it over to his superior to use against the threatened revolts.
With the blind obstinacy of the average mind placed in a position
greater than its powers, he ran counter to the traditions of the
archipelago, and uttered loud resolves that he was not to be beaten;
he would show them how fertile he was in resources; he had no fear of
their bag of winds.
The king again gave him free scope with all the material and forces of
the country, and the ingenious mechanician forged huge guns that would
throw their projectiles enormous distances, and built great ships to
hold them. As he launched one vessel after another, he practised his
crews on board of it, and taught them how to handle the marvellous
artillery. The people stood in awe, as they heard the thunder of their
fire dozens of leagues away, and saw their missiles fall in the sea
miles and miles from the ship whence they had issued; and they shook
their heads wisely and said to each other: “Now, we shall see at last
an end to this isle of demons.”
When the great armada was all ready after long years of work, and the
ships lay at anchor in the harbour, their magazines filled, their
guns in train, and everything prepared for the final expedition, the
people were so overjoyed at the sight that they organised a festival
to the sailors of the wonderful fleet. They had such confidence in the
destructive powers of these ships and their guns that they resolved
to pre-celebrate with magnificent pageantry and feast the triumph
they were so assured of. And as the monarch had already defeated
the incipient rebellion by his aërial fleet, and the mutterings of
the subjugated were stifled or unheard, there could be no danger in
inviting all the sailors on shore to take part in the festivities. So
the great fleet lay peacefully at anchor unmanned, whilst their crews
were being lauded to the skies for their intrepidity and the certainty
of their success.
The night was moonless and deep darkness was flecked only by the
occasional blaze of sky-daring illumination. Everything had gone
off with brilliancy, and the banquet to the sailors was nearing its
climax and close. Suddenly the hubbub of jubilance was hushed; there
was a series of appalling detonations, shaking the banqueting edifice
to its foundations; many thought that the world had come to an end so
terrifying and ear-deafening was the continuous roar. The people in the
streets at first fell on the earth and prayed to their gods. But they
soon saw what had occurred. There out on the harbour the pyrotechnic
display overshadowed anything they had ever seen or even thought of.
The great ships were all of them in flames; the magazine of each had
exploded, and sent decks and fittings and armaments sputtering in
fragments against the black of the sky. The brilliancy of the spectacle
overcame the natural alarm and regret. Such titanic catherine-wheels
they had never seen, such rending of the heavens, such flame-lit
jets of water rising in columns above the doomed ships. But the
spectacle was brief. Ship after ship rose high above the scene of its
devastation, its banners of fire all flying against the darkness, and
then plunged into the extinction and gloom of the depths. The breach in
the side close to the magazine sucked in the waters most swiftly, and
sent the bow-end of each first to the watery assuagement of her fires.
In an hour after the first deafening paroxysm all was still and dark
again on the face of the waters, but for a flaming fragment here and
there, hissing and sputtering against the night.
Then came terror again. The Broolyians, jubilant over the invincibility
of their marvellous fleet, knew not whence the disaster had come or
who had been the enemy. And they now crouched in fear, or ran for