"Note," said Kleig, "that it keeps safely to the low alt.i.tudes, in order to escape the notice of regular air traffic."
No one answered.
The eyes of the Secret Agents were on that flashing, bulbous-bodied plane of the strange wings. It appeared to be heading directly for some objective which must be reached at top speed.
For fifteen minutes the flight continued. Then the plane tilted over and dived, and at an alt.i.tude still of three thousand feet, the wings slashed forward, clicking into their notches in the sides of the bulbous body, with a sound like the ratchets on subway turnstiles, and, holding their breath, the Secret Agents watched it plummet down to the sea. It was traveling with terrific speed when it struck, yet it entered the water with scarcely a splash.
Then, for the first time, an audible gasp, as that of one person, came from the lips of the Secret Agents. For now they could see the objective of the aero-sub. A monster shadow in the water, at a depth of five hundred feet. A shadow which, as Maniel manipulated his instruments, became a floating underwater fortress, ten times the size of any submarine known to the Americas.
Sporting like porpoises about this held-in-suspension fortress were myriads of other aero-subs, maneuvering by squadrons and flights, weaving in and out like schools of fish. The plane which had bourne Prester Kleig churned in between two of the formations, and vanished into the side of the motionless monster of the deep.
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 darting out 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 from their notches in the myriad bulbous bodies to click into place in flying position as the scores of aero-subs took the air above the invisible hiding places of the mother submarine.
At eight thousand feet the aero-subs swung into battle formation and, as though controlled by word of command, they maneuvered there like one vast 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 of terror escaped them all.
At that moment came the voice, loud in the Secret Room, which Kleig at least 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 to regain control after the nerve-numbing question which, asked in far Madagascar, 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 a burst of sardonic laughter--the laughter of Moyen, half-G.o.d of Asia.
Then the voice again:
"The attack is beginning, gentlemen! Within an hour you will have further evidence of the might of Moyen!"
CHAPTER VI
_Vanishing Ships_
Prester Kleig, ordered to Madagascar from the Secret Room, had been merely an operative, honored above others in that he had been one of the few, at that time, ever to visit the Secret Room. Now, however, because he had walked closer to Moyen than anyone else, he a.s.sumed leadership almost by natural right, and the men who had once deferred to him took orders from him.
"Gentlemen," he snapped, while the last words of Moyen still hung in the air of the Secret Room, "we must fight Moyen from here. The best brains in the United Americas are gathered here, and if Moyen can be beaten--_if_ he can be beaten--he will be beaten from the Secret Room!"
A sigh from the lips of Professor Maniel. The President of the United Americas nodded his head, as though he too mutely gave authority into the hands of Prester Kleig. The other Secret Agents shifted slightly, but said nothing.
"I have been away a year," said Kleig, "as you know, and many things have come into regular use since I left. Professor Maniel"s machine for example, upon which he was working when I departed under orders. There will be further use for it in our struggle with Moyen. Professor, will you kindly range the ocean, beginning at once, and see how many of these monsters of Moyen we have to contend with?"
Professor Maniel turned back to his instruments, which he fondled with gentle, loving hands.
"We have nothing with which to combat the attacking forces of Moyen,"
went on Kleig, "save antiquated airplanes, and such obsolete warships as are available. These will be mere fodder for the guns, or rays, or whatever it is that Moyen uses in his aero-subs. Thousands, perhaps millions, of human lives will be lost; but better this than that Moyen rule the West! Better this than that our women be given into the hands of this mob as spoils of war!"
From the Secret Agents a murmur of a.s.sent.
And then, that voice again, startling, clear, with the slightest suggestion of some Oriental accent, in the Secret Room.
"Do not depend too much, gentlemen," it said, "upon your antiquated warships! See, I am merciful, in that I do not allow you to send them against me loaded with men to be slaughtered or drowned! Professor Maniel, I would ask you to turn that plaything of yours and gaze upon the fleet of obsolete ships anch.o.r.ed in Hampton Roads! In pa.s.sing, Professor, I venture to guess that the secret of how I am able to talk with you gentlemen, here in your Secret Room, is no secret at all to you. Now look!"
The Secret Agents gasped again, in consternation.
From the white lips of mouselike Maniel came mumbled words, even as his hands worked with lightning speed.
"His machine is simply a variation of my own. And, gentlemen, compatriots, with it he could as easily project himself, bodily, here into the room with us!"
Something like a suppressed scream from one of the men present. A cold hand of ice about the heart of Prester Kleig. But the words of Professor Maniel were limned on the retina of his brain in letters of fire.
Suppose Moyen _were_ to project himself into the Secret Room....
But he would not. He was no fool, and even these Secret Agents, most of whom were old and no longer strong, would have torn him limb from limb.
But those words of Maniel set whirling once more, and in a new direction, the thoughts of Prester Kleig.
"Mr. President, gentlemen...." It was the voice of Professor Maniel.
All eyes turned again to the screen upon which the professor worked his miracles, which today were commonplaces, which yesterday had been undreamed of. Every Secret Agent recognized the outlines of Hampton Roads, with Norfolk and its towering buildings in the background, and the obsolete warships riding silently at anchor in the roadstead.
For three years they had been there, while a procrastinating Cabinet, Congress and Senate had debated their permanent disposal. They represented millions of dollars in money, and were utterly worthless.
Prester Kleig, looking at them now, could see them putting out to sea, loaded with brave-visaged men, volunteering to go to sure destruction to feed the rapacity of Moyen"s hordes. Men going out to sea in tubs, singing....
But these ships were silent. No plumes of smoke from their funnels. Like floating mausoleums, filled with dead hopes, sh.e.l.ls of past and departed glories.
The beating of waves against their sides could plainly be heard. The anchor chains squeaked rustily in the hawse-holes. Wind sighed through regal, towering superstructures, and no man walked the decks of any one of them.