CHAPTER XVI. KHALID THE MAGNIFICENT.

A FEW minutes before midnight on the fifteenth of May, in the year 2036, Khalid the Magnificent, lord and master of the greatest and most splendid realm that had ever been ruled over by a single man since the world began, stood alone on the spacious terrace of his palace in Alexandria, gazing up at the myriads of stars that shone in the cloudless firmament above him, and dreaming one of those dreams of world-wide empire which had haunted the soul of such men as he from the days of Rameses the Great until his own.

He was a man of thirty-four, tall, swarthy, and athletic, with the proud aquiline features of the Arab, the dark, alternately flashing and melting eyes of the Circassian, and the strong, reposeful dignity of the Turk—a man whom women looked upon with love and men with respect that was often akin to dread.

The lord of seven hundred million subjects who, even in those days, so strong was still the faith and loyalty of the Moslem, looked upon him only as something less than Allah and the Prophet whose sacred blood flowed in his veins, his soaring ambition was not content even with the splendid inheritance that he had received from his ancestors.

In his being were closely blended those elements of religious enthusiasm and worldly ambition which had made the men of the Golden Age of Islam such irresistible conquerors and such[160] mighty rulers of men. He had pondered over the past history of his faith and his people from the times of the Prophet down to his own, until he had come to believe himself the man chosen by Destiny to subjugate the world, and to compel all men, from pole to pole, and east to west, to accept the rule and faith of Islam, and to confess the unity of God and the apostleship of Mohammed.

He saw in the vast area of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, which now, in name at least, dominated Europe, America, and Australasia, only a collection of democratic and ill-governed States in which the mob ruled by blind counting of heads, and in which religion had been refined into a mere philosophy of life and morals, the last word of which seemed to him to be: Make the best of to-day, lest to-morrow should never come.

In his own breast the flame of the fierce, uncompromising faith of Islam burnt, undimmed by the mists of the centuries that had passed since the first Moslem armies had emerged from the deserts of Arabia to conquer the greater part of the Roman world.

Why should he not send forth his armies, as the Khalifs of old had done, to plant the banner of the Crescent over the subjugated realms of Christendom, and rule, the greatest of the Commanders of the Faithful, sovereign lord of a Moslem world?

It was a splendid destiny, but there was a power in the world, located in one tiny spot of earth, and yet, so far as he knew, universal and irresistible, before which the armies which he had called into existence would be as helpless as a swarm of locusts before a forest fire.

This power possessed the empire of the air, and therefore of the earth. In the days of the Terror it had led the Anglo-Saxon race to the conquest of the world. Would it sit idly now behind the bulwarks of Aeria and watch his armies conquering the domains of Anglo-Saxondom?

Was it not far more likely that those terrible air-ships would be sent forth to hurl their destroying lightnings from the skies and overwhelm his armies and his cities in irretrievable[161] ruin? These Aerians had ruled the world for a hundred and twenty-five years, and yet had committed no act of aggression upon the rightful liberties of any nation. How, therefore, could he believe that they would hold their mighty hand while he carried fire and sword through the habitations of their blood and kindred?

If he gave the word for war, within forty-eight hours after he had spoken more than ten millions of men, armed with weapons of fearful precision and destructive power, would stand ready to do his bidding and to carry the banner of the Crescent to the uttermost ends of the earth; but of what use would be their numbers, their valour, or their devotion with a squadron of aerial cruisers wheeling above them and hurling death and destruction upon them from the inaccessible heights of the sky?

He remembered how his ancestor Mohammed Reshad had been stopped in his career of conquest, and how his victorious armies had been decimated and thrown into confusion by a flotilla of air-ships and war-balloons which a dozen cruisers of the present Aerian navy would have swept from the skies in a few minutes. Intolerable as the thought was to his haughty soul, the truth remained that, in the midst of all his power and splendour, he was as helpless as a child before the real masters of the world. He had armies and fleets, but he could not make war without their permission or the assurance of their neutrality, save with the certainty of disaster and defeat.

What would he not give for a squadron of these aerial battleships? Half his empire, willingly, and yet he knew that even an attempt to build a single air-ship would be the signal for his own death and the end of the dominion of his dynasty.

He had no knowledge of the momentous events which had just been taking place on the other side of the world. He still believed implicitly in the unquestioned supremacy of the Aerians throughout the domain of the skies, although he was well aware that some mysterious power had successfully disputed[162] with them the command of the seas, and he remembered the stern threat of immediate war and annihilation that the President of Aeria had promulgated against any who should even help in the concealment of the air-ship that had been lost six years before, and, so far as the world at large was concerned, had never been heard of since.

Anglo-Saxondom, and therefore Christendom, lay at his mercy but for this guardian power of the air. Its millions were unarmed and its wealth unprotected. Its indolent and luxurious democracies, occupied solely with social experiments and the increase of their material magnificence, would be crushed almost without resistance by his splendidly armed and disciplined legions.

The Crescent would replace the Cross above their temples, and the world would be a Moslem planet but for this empire of the air, universal and unconquerable, which barred his way to the dominion of the world and the final triumph of his faith.

For the hundredth time he had revolved the hopeless dilemma in his mind, alternately looking upon the conquests he longed for, and on the splendid but useless forces at his command, when a huge, strange shape dropped swiftly and silently out of the sky overhead, and, as though in answer to the unspoken call of his intense longing, one of those very air-ships of which he had been thinking with such angry despair swept with a majestic downward sloping curve out of the dusk of the night, and ran up close alongside the low parapet of the terrace on which he was standing.

It was the first time he had ever seen one of these marvellous vessels, which were the talk and the wonder of the world, at such close quarters. Paralysed for the moment by mingled curiosity and amazement, he recoiled with a startled invocation to the Prophet on his lips, and then stood staring at it in silence, wondering whether the strange apparition meant the visit of a friend or an enemy.

While he was standing thus the air-ship drifted as silently as a shadow over the parapet, and sank gently down until it[163] rested on the marble floor of the vast terrace. Then a sliding door opened in the after-part of the glass dome which covered the deck from stem to stern, a light metal stairway fell from it, and three men richly and yet simply dressed descended to the terrace and advanced to where he stood.

Two of them halted at a respectful distance, and the third, a man whose dignity of bearing was enhanced by the snowy whiteness of his hair and beard, advanced alone, and with a grave and courteous gesture of salute said in English, the language of universal intercourse—

“Am I right in believing this to be the palace of his Majesty the Sultan?”

It was some moments before Khalid recovered his composure sufficiently to answer the question, simple as it was. His wonder was increased tenfold when he saw that his visitor from the skies did not wear the golden wings which were the insignia of the Aerians.

Was it possible that some other inhabitants of the earth had, in spite of the rigid prohibition of the Supreme Council, managed to build an aerial navy? His heart leapt with exultation at the thought. Obeying the impulse of the moment, he took a stride forward and held out his hand, saying—

“I know not who you are, or whence you come, but if you come in friendship there is my hand in welcome. This is the palace, and I am Khalid, the Commander of the Faithful. What is your errand?”

His visitor took the outstretched hand, and, bending low over it, replied in a tone of the deepest respect—

“I am honoured and fortunate beyond measure! I trust your Majesty will pardon the strangeness of my coming for the importance of the mission that brings me.”

“Say on, sir, and tell me freely who you are and what your mission is, for I am all impatience to know,” said the Sultan, speaking even more cordially than before.

“I am Orloff Lossenski,” replied the ambassador from the skies, “and I am the bearer of a message from my mistress, Olga Romanoff, by right of descent Tsarina of the Russias,[164] and deprived of her lawful rights of rule by the Terrorists who reign in Aeria.”

“Then you are enemies of the Aerians?” broke in the Sultan, “and you possess air-ships like that marvellous craft yonder! How have you—but pardon me, I have interrupted you. You can satisfy my curiosity later on.”

“Her Majesty, my mistress, possesses a large fleet of air-ships, of which this is one,” replied Lossenski, “and she has sent me as her envoy to give your Majesty this letter which will explain my mission in full. At this hour to-morrow night the Tsarina will come in person to receive your answer to it.”

As he spoke he presented a letter to the Sultan, and then drew back a pace. Khalid took the missive without a word and walked towards one of the electric lamps with which the terrace was lighted, breaking the seal as he went. This is what he read—

    To Khalid the Magnificent,
    Sultan of the Moslems.

    You have dreams of world-wide conquest, but the fear of the power of the Aerians restrains you from putting them into action. You command armies and fleets, but they are useless and helpless because you cannot fight in the air as well as on land and sea.

    I can give you the power of doing this, and I will help you to the conquest of the world if you will help me to regain the dominions that were stolen from my ancestors in the days of the Terror.

    Twenty-four hours after you receive this I will come for your answer to it. If you agree to the general terms I have no fear but that the details will be easily arranged between us. This is brought to you by Orloff Lossenski, my chief counsellor and responsible minister, who, at your Majesty’s desire, will lay the particulars of my proposals before you in full.

    Olga Romanoff,
    Tsarina of the Russias.

Hardly had the Sultan finished the perusal of this strangely curt and yet all-pregnant letter when a cry from Lossenski’s two attendants caused him to look up. If what he had seen but a few minutes before had amazed him, what he saw now fairly stupefied him. A second air-ship, similar in size and shape to the first, but with a hull of a strangely lustrous blue[165] metal, had dropped without sign or sound out of space, and was hovering exactly above Lossenski’s vessel with her ten long slender guns pointing in all directions.

A moment later she seemed to drop bodily on to the Russian air-ship, splintering her thin steel masts with the weight of her hull, and yet stopping in her descent before she crushed in the glass dome of the deck. The next instant a score of men slipped swiftly over the side and gained the open door of the Russians’ deck-chamber. Then there came a sound of fierce cries and oaths, and the quick crackling reports of repeating pistols.

The envoy’s two companions turned as though to fly, but two shots fired in quick succession brought them down before they had made a couple of strides. Then a dozen men leapt down upon the terrace and covered Lossenski and the Sultan with their pistols before they had time to recover from the stupefaction into which the suddenness of the attack had thrown them.

The next moment a man, whose splendid stature raised him a good head above the Russian and the Moslem, came down the steps from the deck of the now captured air-ship. As he advanced towards them Khalid, brave and haughty as he was, looked up at him almost as he might have looked upon the visible shape of one of the angels of his faith.

He was dressed in the Aeria costume, save for the fact that, instead of azurine and gold, his winged coronet was black and lustrous as polished jet. In his left hand he carried a magazine pistol, and in his right a long slender rapier with a blade of azurine that gleamed with an intense blue radiance in the light of the electric lamps.

“Orloff Lossenski, you are our prisoner! Go back to your ship or you will be shot where you stand. Sultan Khalid, have you received that letter in your hand from this man?”

Alan’s words came quick and stern, but before they were spoken the Sultan had put a golden whistle to his lips and blown a shrill call, in instant obedience to which a stream of[166] armed guards issued from a door of the palace opening on to the terrace, spread out into a semi-circle, and in turn Alan and his companions were covered by a hundred rifles.

“Now, sir, whoever you are,” exclaimed the Sultan, recovering at once his courage and his composure, “you are my prisoner! Throw down your arms, or”—

“Stop!” cried Alan, in a voice that rang clearly over the whole terrace. “Don’t you see that your palace is under our guns? Fire a shot, and in an hour it shall be a heap of ruins.”

Khalid had forgotten the air-ships for the moment. He glanced up at the two rows of guns, and saw in the lighted interiors of the deck-chambers men standing ready to rain death and ruin in every direction.

Lossenski, too, grasped the suddenly changed situation in an instant. He knew far better than the Sultan did what would be the effect of a discharge of that awful artillery upon the palace and the city, and more than this, he saw the hopeless ruin of his mistress’s plans that would follow the death of the Sultan. He turned to him with an appealing gesture, and said—

“Your Majesty, for the sake of all you hold dear, send back your guards! I surrender to save you!” and then, with a glare of impotent hate at Alan, he turned and walked quickly towards the air-ships.

Nothing could have brought the terrible power of the Aerians home to the mind of Khalid the Magnificent more convincingly than the position in which he now stood. Absolute master of the greatest empire on earth, he stood on the terrace of his own palace, in the midst of his own capital, and with thousands of soldiers within call, as helpless as a child.

But before he could force the words of surrender from his reluctant lips an event occurred which, brave as he was, struck terror to his heart. Alan had raised his rapier to command the attention of his men at the guns, and the captain of the Sultan’s guards, thinking he was going to strike his master,[167] rushed forward and struck at the uplifted blade with his scimitar. As the steel rang upon the azurine the Damascus blade splintered to the hilt.

With a cry half of rage and half of fear the Moslem whipped a pistol out of his sash, but before he could level it the bright blue blade descended swiftly, and when its point was within a foot of his assailant’s eyes Alan dropped his own pistol and pressed a jewel in the centre of his belt-clasp. As he did so a pale blue flame leapt from the point of his sword, and the Moslem, without as much as a sigh, dropped dead on the floor of the terrace.

“Mashallah!” cried the Sultan, recoiling in ungovernable terror. “What are you, man or fiend, that you carry the lightnings in your hand?”

“A man like yourself, Sultan, and one who wishes your Majesty no evil,” replied Alan. “I am Alan Arnold, the son of the President of Aeria, and therefore your friend, unless you choose to make me your enemy. I am at present in command of the cruiser Ithuriel, and we have followed that Russian vessel for over five thousand miles to find out what his errand was. When he landed on your palace we guessed it, I think, pretty nearly. Lossenski came to propose an alliance between your Majesty and his mistress, Olga Romanoff, did he not?”

Before he replied the Sultan, seeing some of his guards advancing again, and being now convinced that resistance was both unnecessary and impossible, ordered them to take away the body of their comrade and those of the two Russians who had been shot. Then he turned to Alan, and said with politeness that was perhaps more Oriental than sincere—

“Pardon my ignorance, Prince of the Air! I did not know that I was speaking to the son of one who is above all the kings of the earth. That slave deserved his death for raising his arm against your Highness. Yes, you are right. The Russian came to me with such a proposal from her you name. Here is her letter. She styles herself Tsarina of the Russias, but I have never heard her name before. Who is she?”

[168]

“I will tell your Majesty,” said Alan, taking the letter which the Sultan now held out to him without hesitation, “for no one can tell you better than I can. She is the last living child of the House of Romanoff. She is beautiful beyond description, and evil beyond comprehension. She aspires to rule in fact as what she styles herself in name, and to bring back the gloom of despotism and oppression on the earth.

“She and her accomplices are responsible for that terrorism of the seas which has paralysed international commerce for more than five years, and they are also in possession of a fleet of about thirty air-ships. How they were enabled to construct them there is now no time to explain. Suffice it to say that they have them, that they have dared to challenge the forces of Aeria to a contest for the empire of the world, and that during the fortnight they have been fighting they have had very much the worst of it.

“We have practically crippled their sea-power, blown up their submarine dockyard, and destroyed about half of their aerial fleet. I tell you this in order that you may receive her proposals with your eyes open. The course of events has made your Majesty to a great extent the arbiter of the destinies of humanity.

“Olga Romanoff knows that you have a splendid army at command, that you have illimitable wealth to spend on war material, and that an alliance between you would be irresistible. As an independent sovereign it is, of course, within your right, as it is within your power, to conclude this alliance if you think fit. Do so if you choose; but remember that if you do you must assume the tremendous responsibility of plunging the whole world into war, and bringing inconceivable desolation upon your fellow-creatures. You will be allying yourself with the worst enemies of humanity—nay, with the only enemies that humanity has on earth.

“This Olga Romanoff is called by her followers the Syren of the Skies, and the name is an apt one, for she is a very syren, armed with arts that can charm a man’s heart out of his[169] breast, make him forget his duty to himself and his loyalty to his race, and, like Circe of old, reduce him to an animal that exists only for the execution of her will and the gratification of her desires. I speak with knowledge; for I have felt, and through me the world will feel, the terrible force of her spells, and I tell you frankly, as man speaking honestly with man, that if you make this alliance there will be war between your people and mine to the death.

“As far as a single man can do so, you hold the fate of mankind in your hand, and within the next forty-eight hours you will decide it. Now I have done my duty, and given you such warning as I can. You will answer for your decision at the bar of God, and it is not for me to say more.

“Whether we meet again as enemies or not, let us part friends, and let me implore you, for the love of God and your kind, to rest content with what the Fates have already given you. You have raised the Moslem power to a pitch of splendour and dominion far beyond all its former glories. You have all that man could ask for”—

“Yes, as a man,” interrupted the Sultan, who up to this point had listened with silent attention to Alan’s quick, earnest words. “But not all that the Commander of the Faithful may be content with. I know not what the religion of your people is, but you know that the laws of mine command me, as they command every true Moslem, to plant the banner of the Prophet over the habitations of the infidel and to give the enemies of the Faith the choice between the sword and the Koran.

“It is not for mere conquest that I have created my armies and my fleet. It is in obedience to the commands of Heaven, which has given me the means of conquering the earth for Islam.”

Khalid spoke rapidly and fiercely with heaving breast and eyes blazing with the lurid light of fanaticism. Alan heard him out in silence. Then his hand fell heavily on the Moslem’s shoulder, and holding him at arm’s length he looked him straight in the eyes and said, slowly and deliberately—

[170]

“Sultan, a man’s faith, by whatever name it may be called, is no concern of ours. He is responsible for it to his God, and there is an end of it. But when you tell me that your faith commands you to force it with fire and sword upon the consciences of those who hold another creed, then I tell you to your face that you are a fanatic and a persecutor.

“Blood enough and to spare has been shed in the wars of creeds, and if I believed that you meant to revive the warfare between Cross and Crescent, I would strike you dead where you stand, as I struck your slave down just now. But I cannot believe it either of you or any other enlightened man.

“I am not in any mood to utter empty threats, but I am speaking no idle words when I tell you that the hour in which you make war on Christendom, either for political or religious conquest, shall be the hour in which you will hear the voice of Destiny speaking your own doom.

“More than that, I ask you now to pledge me your word as an honest man and a ruling King that for twelve months from now, at the very least, you will neither draw a sword nor fire a shot either against Anglo-Saxondom or any other Power.”

He stopped, and took his hand from the Sultan’s shoulder. Khalid recoiled and drew himself up to the full height of his royal stature as he replied—

“Prince of the Air—demi-god almost as you are—you must learn that the Commander of the Faithful is not to be dictated to on the roof of his own palace, even by you. Am I your slave that you should lay these commands upon me?”

Before he made any reply in words Alan communicated a few rapid orders to those in command of the two air-ships in the Aerian sign-language. The Ithuriel rose from above the Vindaya, as the Russian air-ship was named, and both vessels ranged themselves alongside the front of the terrace. The Sultan watched this man?uvre in helpless silence, well knowing that whatever it imported he was powerless to resist. Then Alan went on—

“Not my slave, Sultan, but my fellow-man, and as such I[171] will, if I can, and by any means within my power, prevent you from committing such a colossal crime as that which I am afraid I must now believe you are contemplating. Now listen well, for my words mean much.

“Those two air-ships could lay your capital, vast and splendid as it is, in ruins before to-morrow’s sun rises, and as surely as those stars are shining above us they shall do so unless you give me the pledge I ask for. I ask it in the name of all humanity, and I will not spare a few thousands of lives to enforce it.”

“If you could!” ejaculated the Sultan, half involuntarily. “I have heard much of your wonderful air-ships, but do you know that I have a hundred thousand soldiers in the city, and that I have hundreds of guns which will hurl their projectiles for miles into the air? If only one of the hundreds struck either of those vessels of yours, she would fall like a stone and be dashed to pieces on the earth. The fighting would not be all on one side.”

His tone grew more and more defiant as he went on, and Alan saw that some stern lesson would be necessary to induce him to give the pledge upon which the safety of millions depended. In quiet, even tones, that contrasted strongly with those of the Moslem, he said—

“We of Aeria are not accustomed to boast our prowess lightly, and I am threatening nothing that I cannot do. Still, I do not wish you to give the pledge I ask save in the fullest knowledge. If you will trust yourself with me on board the Ithuriel for an hour under my pledge of your safe return I will prove to you to demonstration that your city would be as defenceless beneath our guns as a collection of tents would be. The moon is high enough now to give us plenty of light for the experiment if you think fit to make it.”

The Sultan hesitated for a few moments, as though in doubt whether he would be permitted to return if he once allowed the Ithuriel to carry him away from the earth. Then he remembered that no man had ever known the Aerian who had broken his word. He looked into Alan’s strong, frank[172] face, and read there an absolute assurance that his safety would be respected. Then, with a slight inclination of his head, he said—

“Your words are wise. I will come, and if you convince me that you can do as you say I will swear by the holy name of the Prophet that I will make no war upon any man for a year from now.”

Alan signalled to the Ithuriel, which ran in close to the terrace. The door of the deck-chamber opened, a gangway was run out, and for the first time in his life Sultan Khalid trod the deck of a cruiser of the air. The Ithuriel and the Vindaya at once mounted up into the now brightly moonlit atmosphere.

The Sultan saw the myriad lights of his splendid capital sink swiftly down into a vast abyss that seemed to open beneath him. The dim horizon widened out until it enclosed an immense expanse of pale grey desert to the south, while to the north a dark stretch of sea spread out farther than the eye could reach. Up and up the air-ships soared until the lights of Alexandria glimmered like a faint white mist at the bottom of a seemingly unfathomable gulf. At length Alan, who was standing beside him, pointed down and said—

“There is your city. If I gave the word, a hundred shells a minute would be rained on to it from here. Do you think your guns could reach us?”

“No,” said the Sultan, striving in vain to repress a shudder at the fearful prospect disclosed by Alan’s words. “But how could your shells strike that little patch of light which is miles away, and thousands of feet below us?”

“That, too, I will prove to you, but not at the expense of your city.”

He sent an order to the engine-room, and the Ithuriel swerved round to the northward and, followed by the Vindaya, swept out over the Mediterranean, in the direction of Crete.

Half an hour’s flight at full speed brought them in sight of a small rocky islet which showed like a black spot on the surface of the moonlit sea. The two air-ships were stopped[173] six thousand feet above the water, and about four miles from the heap of rocks. Alan then gave orders for each of the ships to train four guns upon it.

“Now,” he said to the Sultan, “fix your glass on that mass of rocks down yonder and watch what happens.”

As he spoke he raised his hand and the eight guns were discharged simultaneously. The Sultan heard no report and saw no flash, but a few seconds later he saw through the night glasses that Alan had given him a vast mass of flame of dazzling brilliancy burst out over the islet, covering it completely, for the moment, with a mist of fire.

“Now you shall see the effects of our shells,” said Alan. The two vessels sank rapidly down in a slanting direction towards the spot where the projectiles had struck. A hundred feet from the surface of the water they stopped, and Alan said—

“Now look for the island.”

Khalid swept the sea with his glass. The islet had vanished, the waves were breaking over what seemed to be a sunken reef, and that was all. With hands that trembled, in spite of all that he could do to keep them steady, he took the glass from his eyes, saying in a voice that was shaken by irresistible emotion—

“God is great, and I am but a man, while you are as demigods. It is enough! I will give the pledge you ask for.”