entered into the picture, as from all sides airplanes of many
makes swooped in, and swept back and forth over the moving ships, while
hooded heads looked out of pits, and faces of pilots were aghast at
what they saw.

* * * * *

A ghost column of ships, moving out to sea, speed increasing moment by
moment unbelievably. Even now, five minutes after the first dreadnought
had started seaward, the wake of each ship spread away on either hand in
the two sides of a watery triangle whose walls were a dozen feet
high--racing for the shores with all the sullen majesty of tidal waves.

The crowds gave back, and their screams rose into the air in a
frightened roar of appalling sound.

Even now, so rapidly did the warships travel, many of the planes could
throttle down, so that they flew directly above the heaving decks of the
runaway warships.

"Get word to them!" cried Prester Kleig suddenly. "Get word to them that
if they follow the ships out to sea not a pilot will escape alive!"

One of the Secret Agents rose and hurried from the Secret Room,
traveling at top speed for the first of the many doors enroute to the
broadcasting tower from which all the planes could be reached at once.
Prester Kleig turned back to the magic screen of Maniel.

The warships, water thrown aside by the lifting thrust of their forefeet
in mountains that raced landward with ever-increasing fury, were
clearing the Roads and swinging south by east, heading into the wastes
of the Atlantic. As they cleared the land, and open water for unnumbered
miles lay ahead, the speed of the mighty ships increased to a point
where they rode as high on the water as racing launches, and the
creaking and groaning of their rusty bolts and spars were a continual
paean of protest in the sound apparatus accompanying the showing of the
miracle on the screen.

"They're heading straight for the spot where that super-submarine lies!"
said the President, and no one answered him.

* * * * *

Prester Kleig, watching, was racing over in his mind what he could
recall of his country's armament. Warships were useless, as was being
proved here before his eyes. But there still remained airplanes, in
countless numbers, which could be diverted from ocean travel and from
routine business, to battle this menace of Moyen.

But....

He shuddered as he pictured in his mind's eye the meeting of his
country's flower of fly