THE STOLEN SUBMARINE

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 194, 15 August 1904, Page 6

THE STOLEN SUBMARINE

By G3SQRGE G-K2ESEEH. I

CHAPTER XYIIT. "WE CAN SELL I'RACE TO THE NATIONS." Sir Julius left by the 11.40 train the ihpxt morning, very well pleased indeed vith the results of his trip, infinitely more so, in fact, than he had been on ■lraving Petersburg or Berlin; and M. de Counance, feeling quite as pleiised with iimself, strolled into the bunk shortly after lunch and presented the manager ■with "another cheque, this time for 5"~>,000 francs, payable to himself, luarked, as before, in the corner with the significant initials. As soon as Sir Julius got to London /be drove to his brother's chambers in "Whitehall-mansions—for both the heads of the great firm were still bachelors— and found Randal swaitinjt him in the dining-room, in which the table was set out for dinner. During dinner they chatted ou various subjects connected with their enterprises, because, although Randal Ackernuin's man, who waited on them, was ifche essence of discretion as regards such c' his master's private affairs as he knew, he was not supposed to be let into international secrets. Rut when he had gone, leaving the spirit case and the syphons on the table, Randal looked at his brother and said in a tone of frank admiration: "And so you really think you have pulled it off", Julius? If it all turns out right it will be the biggest coup that the house of Ackerman has pulled off for a good long time: why we should have it in our hands either to start a worldvar or sell peace to the nations at our jDwn price, just as we pleased.'" "As far as I can sec." said his brother, *if everything goes well there may not be ■very much difficulty about that. Anyhow, I have got nil the specifications, as our friend of Courtance called them, and Tve'U go through them presently. Personally, I don't think there's a shadow of donbt Lv!>out it. There's quite PTioujrh here to bring our mutual friend Erskine to his knees, and perhaps a bit lower than that, provided always that you nave had, or may have, as good luck as I have." '■'I've done pretty well," said Rnndal. "You remember that Yondall forgery case, don't you, when I helped to get the scoundrel ofl" with the aid of Erskine the younger, who, as you know, married Ihe fair Leone at somewhat short noiiee and took her ofT to Shanghai?" Sir Julius nodded and smiled a smile which Sir Victor Erskine would not have found very pleasant, and Randal went on: "Well, as he knew nothing about my motives, the poor fellow was tremendously gTateful to mo for what I bad done, and we have been quite good friends since, considering the circumstances. But. anyhow, to make a long story short, he came to mc one day at the club and told mc a rather peculiar yarn, which was to this effect: ''He said that he had been approached by a man named Estcourt, another wrong 'un, who had got found out and done Jiime for it. He came to him and told him that his employer. Sir Victor Erskine. had quite accidentally, in other words, I suppose, by purchase, come into possession of certain letters which would make is possible for the trial of Yondall to be re-opened, and that he bad the power and the will to cjot hold of

these letters if lip got his price, and he named a thousand pounds each. There wera two of them. ''Well, now, us you know. Yondall haa vat as many pennies between him and the workhouse door, and so lie naturally came to inn. Also naturally, n.s soon :i.= I heard that the fellow was in our friend Victor's employment. I toM him 10 bring him to mc and talk the matter liVpr. 1 needn't bother you about the ivst, as we have a lot of other things to talk about, but it camp to this—that i pretty soon tnrnrd Mr. Kslcotrrt inside out, uik! convinced him that. Vi« most rapid road to afflupncß and respectability, under another namo and another sky. was through tho back door of our office. "So. to put it in other words. 1 bought Him body and sou)—though I'm not so sure about the soul. Still, he has a body, and that holy likes to be well fed. and have trood clothes on it with pockets that have plenty of money in them, so I bought that, and when we've put two and two together—what you've done and what I've done—l think you'll agree with mc that I didn't make a bad bargain." And then the two brothers proceeded to perform this simple little sum in addition, which, by the way, in this case was a somewhat complicated one. When they had finished and the papers on which they had dyne the sum were put safely away, they stood up and shook hands with a queer suggestion of formality. They were singularly alike, and this was not very wonderful, considering that they were twins and that Sir Julias had only gained the ten-year-old baronetcy by three minutes. He was a shade or two darker than his brother, and he had hard blue eyes, while Randal had grey ones.; but with these exceptions tbey were traditionally aHke. Also there was that almost mystic affection between thiin which so often exists between twins. To the world— which meant to every one else, for they were orphans without near relations— they were as hard-hearted and hardheaded a couple of men as might be found even where money is most plentiful. They both worshipped the Trinity, whose persons are named Gold, Power, »nd Place—in other words, the Gods of Civilisation, and than these they had none other gods. Men were either their enemies or their instruments, and women just what they could make of them, but they loved each other with the love and trust of perfect truth and confidence—and perhaps that was the chief reason why these two men wielded so large a share of that real Power which Thrones only represent and Senates only talk about. "Then you think we may be certain of meeting Sir Victor to-morrow." said Sir Julius as his brother helped him on with his overcoat. "You're quite sure he's in town. Now that we have decided to have it out with him the sooner we get the better, for a rr ooa many rea-

Aothop of "The Angel of the Revolution," "Srothera of the Chain,-** •• Xfc 3 White Witsh of Mayfair," "The World Masters," etc.

sons. You see, things appear to be happening rather rapidly just now—a good deal more so than the oracles of the press have any idea of." "You needn't have any fear of that, Julius," replied his brother, "Caistairs saw him personally yesterday when he took my letter. You see, he's like onrselves in that way. There are too many things going on just now for him to get very far away from business, and from \v';at he knows about that little transaction with the Japs, and the sinking of the Moldonado, I shouldn't wonder if he is keeping a pretty sharp eye on things." "No doubt about it, Ran," laughed his brother, as they shook hands at the door, "but I think he'll have them a little bit wider open than usual when we've had our interview with him tomorrow. Well, good-night again/ He was staying for the two or three nights that he would be in town at the Savoy, and as it was a fine, clear night he walked round by-the Embankment. At the bottom of Northumberland Avenue there was a boy selling evening papers, and yelling: ''Great Japanese attack on Vladivostock! Mysterious explosions in the - harbouri" He bought a paper, and read the following brief paragraph: '"To the already received reports of the Japanese bombardment at long range, there are now added definite reports of mysterious explosions which took place inside thp harbour, in several cases blowing up the ice in huge fragments. As the fleet was quite five miles away, and as no torpedo-boats or destroyers were seen to approach the forts, the supposition is either that some of the mines were accidentally exploded, as was the case at Port Arthur, or that the wily Japanese have yet another surprise in "the shape of submarine contrivances . to add to these with which they have -i already astonished the Russians." ' "Confound it!" said Sir Julius, as he read this under an electric lamp, "things are moving pretty quickly. I hope there aren't two Richmonds in the E field. If there are, neither the Japs nor the Russians will have a ship left in a week, and —well, then the Lord only , knows what will happen." What had happened so far was this: It will be remembered that the SeaSnake had arrived at Ting-hai four days after the Zanita arrived at Nagasaki, and ?ailed for Port Arthur to play her part in the doings of the Night of Fate, and therefore it happened, as it might well do in the chance of war, that the two most powerful warships —using the word powerful in its most complete sense —which the two contending forces possessed, missed each other by a certain number of miles and hours at the out- ; set of a conflict which, like the Homeric ■ heroes of old, they could virtually have • decided by single combat in a lew minutes. L The Zanita and the Mermaid, with a - division of the fastest Japanese erui- [ sers, had been sent back ,to Nagasaki [ via Chemulpho, for coaling, and some - small repairs to the latter, which were • also ordered to keep a look-out for cer- - tain vessels of the Russian Volunteer i Fleet, Avhieh had been last heard of'coaling at Hong Kong just before the actual • outbreak of war.

When the Zanita reached Nagasaki she was ordered, and, through her, the ever-invisible Mermaid, to join another Japanese squadron -which was about to leave for the north under sealed orders. Wherefore, while the Sea-Snake, in tow of the Donovoi, was running along the eastern shore of the Yellow Sea, northward to Port Ai~thur, her only possible rival was slipping at a speed of 20 knots along the western side to Nagasaki. The next day the Zanita and her consort steamed through the Korean Channel and disappeared into the solitudes of the Sea. of Japan, beyond the roach of telegraphic warning". The oLject of the cruise was merely the carrying out of the original Japanese idea —to paralyse the enemy at sea by a succession of swift and unexpected blows, and then, as long as the ice made landing in force impossible, to maintain a constant succession of scares ■which would keep the enemy in a state of perpetual suspense and anxiety, wasting his stores and firing away his ammunition until the moment arrived for tie combined attacks by land and sea which were intended to sever every Russian port in the East from its sources of supply, and keep them, as England and Russia had kept SebastopoL, as s<s many open wounds through which the Colossus of the North should slowly but anrely bleed to death. Port Arthur, as the Naval Council had good reason to believe, had been sealed up for the time being, and what was left of its fleet was useless for service on tile high, seas. Nothing more was needed there hit watching and worrying. But at Vladivostock there was a squadron of four heavily-armoured cruisers, all of good speed and high gunpower, with about a score of destroyers and torpedo boats, to say nothing of certain old gun vessels which could do some damage at short range. The cruisers had already been to sea, committed one or two outrages on unarmed merchant ships, and had even menaced the shores of Japan near Hakodate. Wherefore what had happened at Port Arthur was to be repeated at Vladivostock, and thus it was that within a week of the destruction of the i Ching-Yan and the four destroyers by I the Sea-Snake, the Mermaid 1200 miles i away to the north, was running under the ice into the bay and harbour at Vladivostock "what time the battleships i and cruisers outside were taking long \ shots at the forts and town. HiUyer, yho was in command of her, had been forbidden by the Japanese admiral to blow up any of the cruisers, as he might easily have done, as he thought they would probably be useful later on under the flag of the Rising Sun. He therefore had to content himself with ramming half a dozen torpedo boats and exploding a score of the mines laid across the mouth of the harbour— after which he went back to give the admiral an account of his doings and an accurate description of the position of the cruisers, and also of the state of their bottoms, which he described as a mass of barnacles festooned with several I varieties of seaweed and slime. The ! Japanese fleet then ceased fire and I steamed away, leaving the commandant of Vladivostock to wonder what on earth i or in the -waters under the earth was I going to happen next. . I (To he Continued.)