Part 32 (1/2)

They all dropped down. Stanton was dead, and James was bleeding badly from the flesh-wound in his leg.

”That was the fellow in that tower over there.” Lawrence made a reconnoissance. ”He is now shooting straight at us.”

”This has got to stop.” Edestone frowned. ”Lawrence send this message. No cipher; I would rather have them catch this.

”Tell 'Specs' first to haul down the U. S. flag and run up my private signal. Then he is to silence every gun he can find that is bearing on us, and train a machine-gun on the door of the bulk-head, ready to fire when I give the signal by throwing up my hat.

”Take Lawrence up to the instrument, Mr. Black,” he directed, turning to Black who was giving ”first aid” to the unfortunate valet. ”I will do what I can for James.”

When the elevator with Lawrence and the electrician had gone up above the level of the roof, leaving the shaft open down into the house, he could distinctly hear the soldiers running up the stairs. At any moment now they might be hammering on the door at the foot of the stairway leading to the roof.

He hated the idea of killing those innocent Germans, mere machines, as they were, in the hands of a Master, who with his entire entourage had become sick with a mania which took the form of militarism, imperialism, and pan-Germanism. But after the death of his two fellow-countrymen--for at heart he was still true to the land of his birth, although to save her he had just renounced the flag--he felt that he was justified in what he was about to do.

With a silent prayer for the peasant mothers who were soon to lose their dear ones, he commended their souls to G.o.d, and not as these mothers, poor benighted creatures, had done, to their Emperor.

He was startled from these sorrowful reflections by the white glow of a searchlight from the Little Peace Maker sweeping across the roof, and playing hither and thither. Evidently, ”Specs” had received his order, and was now feeling about for the bulkhead door.

A moment later he located it. Immediately the night was made hideous with the roar of the guns from the airs.h.i.+p, as they sowed bursting sh.e.l.ls in all directions, and carried death and destruction to the heart of this great and wonderful city, built up stone by stone, and standing as a living monument to one of the greatest people on the face of the earth--a people that science teaches are the very last expression of G.o.d's greatness shown in His wonderful evolution of matter into His own image. And for what? That one family might maintain the position given to one of their ancestors in the remote, dark, and grovelling ages of the past for prowess of which a modern prizefighter might be proud, but for acts to which he with a higher standard might not stoop.

The telling response of the Little Peace Maker soon put an end to the storm of shrapnel and bullets which had been singing, whistling, buzzing, and screaming about them, and Edestone might have been able to stand up, but for the pertinacity of the snipers, those serpents of modern warfare, who were searching every dark corner of the roof.

Matters were fast coming to a climax, however. By the time that Lawrence and Black had returned from sending the wireless message, and had crawled over to where Edestone lay, the soldiers had broken down the lower door, and were pounding at the upper, which ”Specs” was holding as with a rapier point at the heart of a fallen foe, ready to strike at the slightest movement.

Crawling over to the elevator shaft, Edestone called down a warning in a loud voice to those below:

”I have a machine-gun trained on the top of the stairs! If you order your men to break that door down, I will order my guns to fire, and will kill them faster than you can drive them up!”

For a moment the only response to his challenge was silence. Then a voice rang out which he had heard before, arrogant and commanding:

”As G.o.d has ordained that I and none other should rule the earth, with Him alone, I shall. By my Imperial order, and with His a.s.sistance, bring that man to me, dead or alive!”

A brief pause ensued. Edestone could hear the officers urging on their men. Suddenly pistol-shots rang out, and with a mad rush they came on.

The door swayed and s.h.i.+vered under the impact. It split and shattered. Finally it fell.

”May G.o.d have mercy on his soul!” murmured Edestone, and he tossed his hat high in the air.

”Specs” from his look-out caught the signal; and instantly the doorway became a writhing, shrieking ma.s.s of wounded humanity. Like vaseline squeezed out of a tube, it was forced out of the opening by the pressure of those behind and spread in wider and wider circles across the roof, until the aperture itself was choked and stopped with bodies.

But Edestone and his companions were spared the full measure of this sickening sight, as the rapid manoeuvres of the Little Peace Maker compelled them to devote their attention to her.

As the great s.h.i.+p descended to within about ten feet of the chimney-tops, men appeared on her lower bridge and dropped over the insulated ladder which extended almost to where the refugees lay.

Picking James up and putting him on his back where he clung like a baby, Edestone ran for the ladder, quickly followed by Lawrence and Black. He reached the bridge just in time to turn James over to one of the crew, and extend his a.s.sistance to Lawrence, who had received a shot in one hand, and was rather dizzily holding on to the ladder with the other. Eventually, though, they all gained the bridge, and with their rescuers already there raced up the gangway under a perfect hail of bullets for the open doorway at the top. But before the last man had pa.s.sed through, two of the sailors had been shot, and had fallen to their death on the roof.

As they entered the s.h.i.+p, they were met by ”Specs,” Captain Lee, Dr. Brown, and other officers in uniforms which at the first glance might have been taken for those of the New York Yacht Club, except for the insignia on their caps which was a combination of Edestone's private signal and the letters L. P. M. Edestone, however, interrupted their attempt to salute him.

”Please waive all ceremony,” he said. ”We have wounded men here that must be attended to.”