"Why, it said Pax was getting tired of nothing being done and wanted action of some sort. Said that men were dying like flies, and he proposed to put an end to it at any cost. And--and----"
"Yes! Yes!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Liban breathlessly.
"And he would give further evidence of his control over the forces of nature to-night."
"Ha! Ha!" Von Koenitz leaned back in amus.e.m.e.nt. "My friend," he chuckled, "you--are--the "nut"!"
What form Hood"s resentment might have taken is problematical; but as the German"s words left his mouth the electric lights suddenly went out and the windows rattled ominously. At the same moment each occupant of the room felt himself sway slightly toward the east wall, on which appeared a bright yellow glow. Instinctively they all turned to the window which faced the north. The whole sky was flooded with an orange-yellow aurora that rivalled the sunlight in intensity.
"What"d I tell you?" mumbled Hood.
The Executive Mansion quivered, and even in that yellow light the faces of the amba.s.sadors seemed pale with fear. And then as the glow slowly faded in the north there floated down across the aperture of the window something soft and fluffy like feathers. Thicker and faster it came until the lawn of the White House was covered with it. The air in the room turned cold. Through the window a large flake circled and lit on the back of Rostoloff"s head.
"Snow!" he cried. "A snowstorm--in August!"
The President arose and closed the window. Almost immediately the electric lights burned up again.
"Now are you satisfied?" cried Liban to the German.
"Satisfied?" growled Von Koenitz. "I have seen plenty of snowstorms in August. They have them daily in the Alps. You ask me if I am satisfied.
Of what? That earthquakes, the aurora borealis, electrical disturbances, snowstorms exist--yes. That a mysterious bugaboo is responsible for these things--no!"
"What, then, do you require?" gasped Liban.
"More than a snowstorm!" retorted the German. "When I was a boy at the gymnasium we had a thunderstorm with fishes in it. They were everywhere one stepped, all over the ground. But we did not conclude that Jonah was giving us a demonstration of his power over the whale."
He faced the others defiantly; in his voice was mockery.
"You may retire, Mr. Hood," said the President. "But you will kindly wait outside."
"That is an honest man if ever I saw one, Mr. President," announced Sir John, after the operator had gone out. "I am satisfied that we are in communication with a human being of practically supernatural powers."
"What, then, shall be done?" inquired Rostoloff anxiously. "The world will be annihilated!"
"Your Excellencies"--Von Koenitz arose and took up a graceful position at the end of the table--"I must protest against what seems to me to be an extraordinary credulity upon the part of all of you. I speak to you as a rational human being, not as an amba.s.sador. Something has occurred to affect the earth"s...o...b..t. It may result in a calamity. None can foretell. This planet may be drawn off into s.p.a.ce by the attraction of some wandering world that has not yet come within observation. But one thing we know: No power on or of the earth can possibly derange its relation to the other celestial bodies. That would be, as you say here, "lifting one"s self by one"s own boot-straps." I do not doubt the accuracy of your clocks and scientific instruments. Those of my own country are in harmony with yours. But to say that the cause of all this is a _man_ is preposterous. If the mysterious Pax makes the heavens fall, they will tumble on his own head. Is he going to send himself to eternity along with the rest of us? Hardly! This Hood is a monstrous liar or a dangerous lunatic. Even if he has received these messages, they are the emanations of a crank, as, he says, he himself first suspected. Let us master this hysteria born of the strain of constant war. In a word, let us go to bed."
"Count von Koenitz," replied Sir John after a pause, "you speak forcefully, even persuasively. But your argument is based upon a proposition that is scientifically fallacious. An atom of gunpowder can disintegrate itself, "lift itself by its own boot-straps!" Why not the earth? Have we as yet begun to solve all the mysteries of nature? Is it inconceivable that there should be an undiscovered explosive capable of disrupting the globe? We have earthquakes. Is it beyond imagination that the forces which produce them can be controlled?"
"My dear Sir John," returned Von Koenitz courteously, "my ultimate answer is that we have no adequate reason to connect the phenomena which have disturbed the earth"s rotation with any human agency."
"That," interposed the President, "is something upon which individuals may well differ. I suppose that under other conditions you would be open to conviction?"
"a.s.suredly," answered Von Koenitz. "Should the sender of these messages prophesy the performance of some miracle that could not be explained by natural causes, I would be forced to admit my error."
Monsieur Liban had also arisen and was walking nervously up and down the room. Suddenly he turned to Von Koenitz and in a voice shaking with emotion cried: "Let us then invite Pax to give us a sign that will satisfy you."
"Monsieur Liban," replied Von Koenitz stiffly, "I refuse to place myself in the position of communicating with a lunatic."
"Very well," shouted the Frenchman, "I will take the responsibility of making myself ridiculous. I will request the President of the United States to act as the agent of France for this purpose."
He drew a notebook and a fountain pen from his pocket and carefully wrote out a message which he handed to the President. The latter read it aloud:
"_Pax_: The Amba.s.sador of the French Republic requests me to communicate to you the fact that he desires some further evidence of your power to control the movements of the earth and the destinies of mankind, such phenomena to be preferably of a harmless character, but inexplicable by any theory of natural causation. I await your reply.
"THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES."
"Send for Hood," ordered the President to the secretary who answered the bell. "Gentlemen, I suggest that we ourselves go to Georgetown and superintend the sending of this message."
Half an hour later Bill Hood sat in his customary chair in the wireless operating room surrounded by the President of the United States, the amba.s.sadors of France, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia, and Professor Thornton. The faces of all wore expressions of the utmost seriousness, except that of Von Koenitz, who looked as if he were partic.i.p.ating in an elaborate hoax. Several of these distinguished gentlemen had never seen a wireless apparatus before, and showed some excitement as Hood made ready to send the most famous message ever transmitted through the ether. At last he threw over his rheostat and the hum of the rotary spark rose into its staccato song. Hood sent out a few V"s and then began calling:
"PAX--PAX--PAX."
Breathlessly the group waited while he listened for a reply. Again he called:
"PAX--PAX--PAX."
He had already thrown in his Henderson ballast coils and was ready for the now familiar wave. He closed his eyes, waiting for that sharp metallic cry that came no one knew whence. The others in the group also listened intently, as if by so doing they, too, might hear the answer if any there should be. Suddenly Hood stiffened.
"There he is!" he whispered. The President handed him the message, and Hood"s fingers played over the key while the spark sent its singing note through the ether.
"Such phenomena to be preferably of a harmless character, but inexplicable by any theory of natural causation," he concluded.
An uncanny dread seized on Thornton, who had withdrawn himself into the background. What was this strange communion? Who was this mysterious Pax? Were these real men or creatures of a grotesque dream? Was he not drowsing over his eyepiece in the meridian-circle room? Then a simultaneous movement upon the part of those gathered round the operator convinced him of the reality of what was taking place. Hood was laboriously writing upon a sheet of yellow pad paper, and the amba.s.sadors were unceremoniously crowding each other in their eagerness to read.
"To the President of the United States," wrote Hood: "In reply to your message requesting further evidence of my power to compel the cessation of hostilities within twenty-four hours, I"--there was a pause for nearly a minute, during which the ticking of the big clock sounded to Thornton like revolver shots--"I will excavate a channel through the Atlas Mountains and divert the Mediterranean into the Sahara Desert.
PAX."
Silence followed the final transcription of the message from the unknown--a silence broken only by Bill Hood"s tremulous, half-whispered: "He"ll do it all right!"
Then the German Amba.s.sador laughed.
"And thus save your ingenious nation a vast amount of trouble, Monsieur Liban," said he.
VI
A Tripolitan fisherman, Mohammed Ben Ali el Bad, a holy man nearly seventy years of age, who had twice made the journey to Mecca and who now in his declining years occupied himself with reading the Koran and instructing his grandsons in the profession of fishing for mullet along the reefs of the Gulf of Cabes, had anch.o.r.ed for the night off the Tunisian coast, about midway between Sfax and Lesser Syrtis. The mullet had been running thick and he was well satisfied, for by the next evening he would surely complete his load and be able to return home to the house of his daughter, Fatima, the wife of Abbas, the confectioner.
Her youngest son, Abdullah, a lithe lad of seventeen, was at that moment engaged in folding their prayer rugs, which had been spread in the bow of the falukah in order that they might have a clearer view as they knelt toward the Holy City. Chud, their slave, was cleaning mullet in the waist and chanting some weird song of his native land.
Mohammed Ben Ali el Bad was sitting cross-legged in the stern, smoking a hookah and watching the full moon sail slowly up above the Atlas Range to the southwest. The wind had died down and the sea was calm, heaving slowly with great orange-purple swells resembling watered silk. In the west still lingered the fast-fading afterglow, above which the stars glimmered faintly. Along the coast lights twinkled in scattered coves.
Half a mile astern the Italian cruiser _Fiala_ lay slowly swinging at anchor. From the forecastle came the smell of fried mullet. Mohammed Ben Ali was at peace with himself and with the world, including even the irritating Chud. The west darkened and the stars burned more brilliantly. With the hookah gurgling softly at his feet, Mohammed leaned back his head and gazed in silent appreciation at the wonders of the heavens. There was Turka Kabar, the crocodile; and Menish el Tabir, the sleeping beauty; and Rook Hamana, the leopard, and there--up there to the far north--was a shooting star. How gracefully it shot across the sky, leaving its wake of yellow light behind it! It was the season for shooting stars, he recollected. In an instant it would be gone--like a man"s life! Saddened, he looked down at his hookah. When he should look up again--if in only an instant--the star would be gone. Presently he did look up again. But the star was still there, coming his way!
He rubbed his old eyes, keen as they were from habituation to the blinding light of the desert. Yes, the star was coming--coming fast.
"Abdullah!" he called in his high-pitched voice. "Chud! Come, see the star!"