Part 24 (2/2)
As it was, the British line of communications was broken between Temple and Eddleston, the outposts at the latter place having been surprised and slaughtered. But although the enemy strove hard to break down the lines of defence and invest Edinburgh, yet time after time they were hurled back with fearful loss. Colinton and Liberton were sacked and burned by the Tsar's forces. On every hand the Russians spread death and destruction; still the defenders held their own, and when the fighting ceased after nightfall Edinburgh was still safe. Strong barricades manned by civilians had been hastily thrown up near the station in Leith Walk, in London Road opposite the Abbey Church, in Inverleith Row, in Clerk Street and Montague Street, while all the bridges over the Water of Leith had been blown up with gun-cotton; quick-firing guns had been posted on Calton Hill and at the Castle, while in St. Andrew's Square a battery had been established by the 1st Haddington Volunteer Artillery, under Major J. J. Kelly, who had arrived in haste from Dunbar, and this excellent position commanded a wide stretch of country away towards Granton.
At dead of night, under the calm, bright stars, a strange scene might have been witnessed. In the deep shadow cast by the wall of an old and tumble-down barn near the cross-roads at Niddry, about three miles from Edinburgh, two Russian infantry officers were in earnest conversation.
They stood leaning upon a broken fence, talking in a half-whisper in French, so that the half-dozen privates might not understand what they said. The six men were busy unpacking several strange black cases, handling the contents with infinite care. Apparently three of the boxes contained a quant.i.ty of fine silk, carefully folded, while another contained a number of square, dark-looking packages, which, when taken out, were packed in order upon a strong net which was first spread upon the gra.s.s. Ropes were strewn over the ground in various directions, the silk was unfolded, and presently, when all the contents had been minutely inspected by the two officers with lanterns, a small tube was taken from a box that had remained undisturbed, and fastened into an object shaped like a bellows.
Then, when all preparations were satisfactorily completed, the six men threw themselves upon the gra.s.s to s.n.a.t.c.h an hour's repose, while the officers returned to their previous positions, leaning against the broken fence, and gravely discussing their proposals for the morrow's gigantic sensation. The elder of the two was explaining to his companion the nature of the _coup_ which they intended to deliver, and the mode in which it would be made. So engrossed were they in the contemplation of the appalling results that would accrue, they did not observe that they were standing beneath a small square hole in the wall of the barn; neither did they notice that from this aperture a dark head protruded for a second and then quick as lightning withdrew. It was only like a shadow, and disappeared instantly!
Ten minutes later a mysterious figure was creeping cautiously along under the hedge of the high road to Newington in the direction of the British lines. Crawling along the gra.s.s, and pausing now and then with his ear to the ground, listening, he advanced by short, silent stages, exercising the greatest caution, well aware that death would be his fate should he be discovered. In wading the Braid Burn he almost betrayed himself to a Russian sentry; but at last, after travelling for over an hour, risking discovery at any moment, he at length pa.s.sed the British outposts beyond Liberton, and ascended the Braid Hills to the headquarters.
The story he told the General commanding was at first looked upon as ludicrous. In the dim candlelight in the General's tent he certainly looked a disreputable derelict, his old and tattered clothes wet through, his hands cut by stones and bleeding, and his face half covered with mud. The three officers who were with the General laughed when he dashed in excitedly, and related the conversation he had overheard; yet when he subsequently went on to describe in detail what he had witnessed, and when they remembered that this tramp was an artilleryman who had long ago been conspicuous by his bravery at El Teb, and an ingenious inventor, their expression of amus.e.m.e.nt gave way to one of alarm.
The General, who had been writing, thoughtfully tapped the little camp table before him with his pen. ”So they intend to destroy us and wreck the city by that means, now that their legitimate tactics have failed! I can scarcely credit that such is their intention; yet if they should be successful--if”--
”But they will not be successful, sir. If you will send some one to a.s.sist me, and allow me to act as I think fit, I will frustrate their dastardly design, and the city shall be saved.”
”You are at liberty to act as you please. You know their plans, and I have perfect confidence in you, Mackenzie,” replied the officer. ”Do not, however, mention a word of the enemy's intention to any one. It would terrify the men; and although I do not doubt their bravery, yet the knowledge of such a horrible fate hanging over them must necessarily increase their anxiety, and thus prevent them from doing their best. We are weak, but remember we are all Britons. Now come,” he added, ”sit there, upon that box, and explain at once what is your scheme of defence against this extraordinary attack.”
And the fearless man to whom the General had entrusted the defence of Edinburgh obeyed, and commenced to explain what means he intended to take--a desperate but well-devised plan, which drew forth words of the highest commendation from the commanding officer and those with him.
They knew that the fate of Edinburgh hung in the balance, and that if the city were taken it would be the first step towards their downfall.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
”THE DEMON OF WAR.”
Two hours later, just before the break of day, British bugles sounded, and the camp on the Braid Hills was immediately astir. That the enemy were about to test the efficiency of a new gigantic engine of war was unknown except to the officers and the brave man who had risked his life in order to obtain the secret of the foeman's plans.
To him the British General was trusting, and as with knit brows and anxious face the grey-haired officer stood at the door of his tent gazing across the burn to Blackford Hill, he was wondering whether he had yet obtained his coign of vantage. From the case slung round his shoulder he drew his field gla.s.ses and turned them upon a clump of trees near the top of the hill, straining his eyes to discover any movement.
On the crest of the hill two Volunteer artillery batteries were actively preparing for the coming fray, but as yet it was too dark to discern anything among the distant clump of trees; so, replacing his gla.s.ses, the commanding officer re-entered his tent and bent for a long time over the Ordnance Map under the glimmering, uncertain light of a guttering candle.
Meanwhile the Russians were busily completing their arrangements for striking an appalling blow.
Concealed by a line of trees and a number of farm buildings, the little section of the enemy had worked indefatigably for the past two hours, and now in the grey dawn the contents of the mysterious boxes, a long dark monster, lay upon the gra.s.s, moving restlessly, trying to free itself from its trammels.
It was a huge and curiously-shaped air-s.h.i.+p, and was to be used for dropping great charges of melinite and steel bombs filled with picric acid into the handsome historic city of Edinburgh! Some of the sh.e.l.ls were filled with sulphurous acid, carbon dioxide, and other deadly compounds, the intent being to cause suffocation over wide areas by the volatilisation of liquid gases!
This controllable electric balloon, a perfection of M. Gaston Tissandier's invention a few years before, was, as it lay upon the gra.s.s, nearly inflated and ready to ascend, elongated in form, and filled with hydrogen.
It was about 140 feet long, 63 feet in diameter through the middle, and the envelope was of fine cloth coated with an impermeable varnish. On either side were horizontal shafts of flexible walnut laths, fastened with silk belts along the centre, and over the balloon a netting of ribbons was placed, and to this the car was connected. On each of the four sides was a screw propeller 12 feet in diameter, driven by b.i.+.c.hromate of pota.s.sium batteries and a dynamo-electric motor. The propellers were so arranged that the balloon could keep head to a hurricane, and when proceeding with the wind would deviate immediately from its course by the mere pulling of a lever by the aeronaut.
Carefully packed in the car were large numbers of the most powerful infernal machines, ingeniously designed to effect the most awful destruction if hurled into a thickly-populated centre. Piled in the smallest possible compa.s.s were square steel boxes, some filled with melinite, dynamite, and an explosive strongly resembling cordite, only possessing twice its strength, each with fulminating compounds, while others contained picric acid fitted with gla.s.s detonating tubes. Indeed, this gigantic engine, which might totally wreck a city and kill every inhabitant in half an hour while at an alt.i.tude of 6 miles, had rightly been named by the Pole who had perfected Tissandier's invention--”The Demon of War.”
While the two officers of the Russian balloon section, both experienced aeronauts, were finally examining minutely every rope, ascertaining that all was ready for the ascent, away on Blackford Hill one man, pale and determined, with coat and vest thrown aside, was preparing a counterblast to the forthcoming attack. Under cover of the clump of trees, but with its muzzle pointing towards Bridgend, a long, thin gun of an altogether strange type had been brought into position. It was about four times the size of a Maxim, which it resembled somewhat in shape, only the barrel was much longer, the store of ammunition being contained in a large steel receptacle at the side, wherein also was some marvellously-contrived mechanism. The six gunners who were a.s.sisting Mackenzie at length completed their work, and the gun having been carefully examined by the gallant man in charge and two of the officers who had been in the tent with the General during the midnight consultation, Mackenzie, with a glance in the yet hazy distance where the enemy had bivouaced, pulled over a small lever, which immediately started a dynamo.
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