“They are going to sink with her,” he replied, getting up and looking through the telescope.
A man came into the cabin and Wilmot swung round.
“No message been sent yet, Chief.”
Wilmot nodded and dismissed him.
“A wonderful invention—wireless, isn’t it? But I confess that it renders modern piracy a little difficult. In this case the matter is not one of vital importance, but when we come to the bigger game the question will have to be very carefully handled. Now on this occasion it may be that the two excellent and reliable men who took the place of two members of the Hermione’s crew at Southampton have broken up the instrument already; or it may be that the wireless operator hardly considers it worth while to broadcast the information that he has seen us. However, we shall soon know. My dear!” he added to the girl, “we’re getting very close. I think it might interest you now.”
She got up and stood beside him, whilst I stood there in a sort of stupor. I watched Wilmot go to a speaking-tube: heard him give directions to fly lower. And then, drawn by some unholy fascination, I too went and looked out.
Half-a-mile ahead of us was the yacht, steaming slowly ahead. The passengers were lining the rail staring up at us, and in a few seconds we had come so close that I could see the flutter of their pocket-handkerchiefs.
“Come with me, Gaunt,” snapped Wilmot. “Now comes the business. My dear, you stay here.”
He rushed me along the main corridor till we came to one of the central ballast tanks. The engines were hardly running, and I realised that we must be directly over the yacht and just keeping pace with her. Two men clad in rubber suits stood by the tank: two others were by the corresponding tank on the opposite side of the gangway. Wilmot himself was peering into an instrument set close by the first tank, and I saw a duplicate by the second. I went to it and found it was an arrangement of mirrors based on the periscope idea: by looking into it I saw directly below the airship.
And of the next ten minutes how can I tell? Straight underneath us—not a hundred feet below—lay the yacht. Everyone—guests, crew, servants—were peering up at the great airship, which must have seemed to fill the entire sky. And then Wilmot gave an order. Two levers were pulled back, and the rain of death began to fall. The rain that I had invented—Oh, God!—it was unbelievable. …
I saw a woman who had been waving at us fall backwards suddenly on the deck and lie there rigid, her face turned up towards us. A man rushed forward to her help: he never reached her. The poison got him first. And all over the deck it was the same. Men and women ran screaming to and fro, only to crash forward suddenly and lie still as the death rain went on falling. I saw three niggers, their black faces incongruous against their white ducks. They had rushed out at the sound of the pandemonium on deck, and with one accord, as if they had been poleaxed simultaneously, they died. I saw a man in uniform shaking his fist at us. He only shook it once, poor devil. …
And then as if from a great distance I heard Wilmot’s voice—“Enough.”
The rain of death ceased: it was indeed enough. No soul moved on the yacht: only a white-clad figure at the wheel kept her on her course.
Stumbling blindly, I went back to the central cabin. The girl was still there, staring out of the window, and I think I screamed foolish curses at her. She took no notice: she was watching something through a pair of glasses.
“Quite well timed,” she remarked as Wilmot entered. “She’s only about a mile off.”
I looked and saw a vessel tearing through the water towards us: coming to the rendezvous of death.
“I would never have believed,” said Wilmot, “that with her lines she would have been capable of such speed.”
Then he turned to me.
“Put on that suit,” he said curtly. “We’re going down on deck.”
He was getting into one himself, and half unconsciously I followed his example. I was dazed: stunned by the incredible atrocity I had just witnessed.
And if it had been terrible from above, what words can paint the scene on deck as we stepped out of the cage? In every corner lay dead bodies; and one and all they stared at me out of their sightless eyes. They cursed me for having killed them: everywhere I turned they cursed me.
The deck was ringing wet: the smell of the poison lay heavy in the air. And again and again I asked myself—What was the meaning of this senseless outrage? I didn’t know then of the incredible wealth of the wretched people who had been killed: of the marvellous jewels that were on board.
The other vessel lay alongside: a dozen of the crew clothed in rubber suits had come on board the yacht. It was the ruthless efficiency of it all that staggered me: they worked like drilled soldiers. One by one they carried the bodies below and piled them into cabins. And when a cabin was full they shut the door. They damped down the stoke-room fires: they blew off what head of steam remained. They stove in the four ship’s boats and sank them: they moved every single thing that would float and put it below in such a place that when the ship sank everything would go down with her. And all the while the dirigible circled overhead.
Once, and only once, did anything happen to interrupt them. Heaven knows where he had been hidden or how he had escaped, but suddenly, with a wild shout, one of the crew darted on deck. In his hands he held a pick: he was a stoker evidently. Gallant fellow: he
