to me is for this adaptation to under-water vessels.”
We went along a tiny alley-way—there was no more than room for Perrywell to pass—and into a room which certainly could not have accommodated more than two men. There were fixed revolving chairs or stools before a glittering switchboard, upon which were levers, dials, lamps and indicators of a more complicated character than anything I had ever seen.
“A protective headdress is worn,” Dr. Heron explained, “by the Ericksen operators; otherwise exposure to the waves created would shorten life speedily. Now, here is the main control. If I am ordered by the officer in the turret to proceed, this lever I depress. It creates before the bows of my ship a new chemical condition.”
“Call it steam,” suggested Perrywell.
“ery well. Instantaneously it reduces a large number of cubic feet of water to vapour.”
“I should expect a tremendous explosion,” I said.
“You get one—you get one!” said Dr. Heron. “But what do I do with this tremendous explosion! I use it as the tremendous explosion is used in the Diesel engine. Through the Heron tube”—he turned to Perrywell: “these at least, my own invention are—I transfer that power from the bows to the stem. Here it becomes motive, and because as it is created I withdraw it, what happens?”
I shook my head blankly.
“I have before me a continuously renewing partial vacuum. I have behind me a driving power that even without the vacuum would give me great velocity. By means of these two together I have an underwater speed. Air. Kerrigan, which no submarine engineer has ever to dream of dared.”
I suppose I bore a puzzled expression, for: “Sounds like mumbo-jumbo,” said Perrywell. “But of this I can assure you—these things really
“But what power do you use to empty your tanks?”
“Ballast tanks? No ballast tanks I carry.”
“No ballast tanks?”
“I am weighted so that I sink like a thousand tons of lead. I sink deep, deep, many fathoms deep. But three Swainsten dials, one forward, one amidships, one aft, I operate from here—see.”
He indicated sections of the switchboard which seemed to be insulated from the others.
“This, forward, to lift my bows—gently or suddenly as I move the indicator. This, aft, my stern the same. This, the centre control, and I rise up, up, on an even keel.”
“Where are the torpedo tubes?”
Perrywell laughed gruffly.
“The Doctor’s ships come out of Alice in Wonderland,” he said; “they carry no torpedoes.”
“No torpedoes? Then of what use are they in war?”
Again the German shook his head enviously.
“Again, it is Ericksen. I have no periscope, but I have a complete view of the sea for miles around which reaches me from a float or several floats and is thrown upon the control screen in the conning tower. It is possible that the Doctor has shown you the improved television which we have?”
“He has not demonstrated it to me,” I replied, “but some time ago in London I came in contact with it.”
“Good, good—the same thing, or an adaptation of my own. These floats or buoys, of which I shall presently show you several models, are operated from the firing-turret. They remain in contact by means of a cable operating over a drum of a material so light and yet so strong—a preparation of the Doctor’s—that half a mile of such cable weighs only twelve pounds; yet the float can be towed back upon it.”
“But what are the objects of these floats?”
“They are motor-driven and radio-steered. Each carries an Ericksen projector.”
“Ericksen again,” murmured Perrywell.
“True—too true. The range of such a projector is limited. Someday, no doubt, it will be increased: the Doctor is carrying out experiments; but at present it is limited. When the float is in range of its target, the operator—we carry no gunnery officers—directs the wave—”
He paused, drew a deep breath, and extended his palms.
‘There is no substance, Mr. Kerrigan, no form of armour plating, however thick, which is not destroyed by it as if through a paper bag one push one’s finger. From here, our base, we control every movement the United States could make. A fleet of one hundred Sharks—we have more than one hundred—could destroy the whole shipping of the Caribbean in a week.”
‘“What is your speed?” I asked.
“It increases as I dive. At twenty fathoms it is forty knots.”
“What!”
“On the surface as you see me now, it is only fifteen. But I have no occasion on the surface to remain. My motive power, my armament, I draw from the elements through which I pass. I require only material provisions for my crew; and I carry six.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
“I GIVE YOU ONE HOUR”
“Although you belong to a wiser and more imaginative race,” said Dr. Fu Manchu, “as I have already observed you are curiously English in your outlook. The German hordes overrun Europe. But other governments of the world, including the Government of the United States, continue to treat with them as with equals. I use the methods of those German hordes, but more subtly and more effectively. Quality rather than quantity distinguished the master. Yet, because I hold no diplomatic portfolio,I, Fu Manchu, am a criminal.”
He drew himself up to his great height, a grotesque figure in that prosaic office deep in the heart of an extinct volcano. I anticipated an outburst. But as he stood, those glistening eyes grew filmed, introspective. He dropped down again into the chair from which he had risen, and reflectively took a pinch of snuff.
“Yes, you possess a good, but not a first-rate intelligence,” he went on, musingly, his voice now low. “You have trained powers of observation. You possess that Celtic fire which, transmuted, sometimes produces genius. You are a man who honours his word; I recognize one when I meet him, since I honour my own. I could take other steps, but I trust my judgement. The world is in the balance. I hold in my hand that decimal of a gramme which shall determine which way the scale tips. I am going to send you as my nuncio to Sir Denis Nayland Smith and the American authorities. Neither he nor Washington has communicated with me.”.
Only one thought entered my mind at that moment: Smith has escaped—Smith was free! Thank God for this knowledge! Smith was free!
“You will say that my services are at the disposal of the Allied governments and of the Government of the United States. You will tell him what you know of my facilities; and you will make it your business to bring him back with you entrusted by his own Government, by that of the United States, or by both, with plenipotentiary powers to negotiate—not with a criminal, but with one who holds the destiny of the world in his hands. I have said that I am prepared to accept your word; but Sir Denis, being bound by no such obligation, might forcibly detain you.
Therefore, I shall take steps to limit the time of your absence. You will have seventy-two hours in which to return. It is a painless operation: I shall operate personally. You may decline this commission if you wish. It is now six o’clock. I give you one hour. Report to me here at seven.”
Faced by this ghastly prospect, every hissing syllable of Fu Manchu’s ultimatum repeating itself over and over again in my brain, I wandered along the busy quays of that subterranean dockyard. No one paid the slightest attention to my presence. I walked straight ahead—aimlessly—hopelessly—thinking. For me it was the end: I should never see Ardatha again; for that Nayland Smith should compromise with Dr. Fu Manchu was a thing unthinkable. Yet, whatever became of me, heaven be thanked. Smith was free! The fight went on!
And now, as I wandered along past the groups of workers, some of whom glanced at me—but none with any evidence of curiosity—an explanation presented itself. In my shabby drill suit, my skin reduced by the hot sun to a dusky brown, I was indistinguishable from many of the labourers: they mistook me for one of the “below-ground” staff!
This theory to explain their indifference to the presence of a stranger was strengthened a moment later. At the head of some steps against which a boat was tied up, a man dressed almost as I was dressed sat splicing a length of rope. There was no one within twenty yards of the spot, and for this reason I particularly noticed him. His bowed shoulders were turned to me as he bent over his task. I had almost passed him when he spoke: “Don’t
