“Well, where do I come in? I’ve come all the way from New York to go cruising with you.”
“I tell you what,” said Evans, after a moment’s reflection, “you go down to the harbor and find Jones’s store. Get whatever looks good in the way of fresh food; I’ve got plenty of canned goods and staple groceries on board. Get the stuff delivered at Salter’s Landing. I can finish up this experiment by midnight, and I guess after that it won’t hurt me to get it out of my system for a while. Go to the movies or anything you like, and then come here with a taxi about midnight, and we’ll get aboard as quick as we can.”
Clearly the man of science could no more be budged till his cherished experiment had yielded its golden fruit of knowledge than can the moon be diverted from her course in the skies. No exploration of new continents, no searching for hidden gold can lure the spirit on with so strong an appeal as the unknown law of Nature awaiting the crucial experiment, planned and prepared for months, and then appearing at last like the light of day when the experiment is done and the measurements construed with the power of reason.
Mortimer obeyed, and wandered off to spend the afternoon and evening on the water-front of the harbor. The next day the two friends sailed a sparkling sea together in a tiny cruising knockabout—boys once more.
CHAPTER II
THE STORM-CLOUD
The next act of our story opens in the year 1937. An international crisis of the most momentous nature had just come to a head in Europe.
For some years past a group of powerful men in Constantinople, intriguing diplomatists and financial magnates, had been quietly developing a scheme for world domination. By a process of peaceful penetration, aided liberally by the adroit use of secret agents, they had obtained complete control of the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor, and for the first time in history reaped the harvest of a proper development of the rich natural resources of these areas. Thus enriched, the coalition had spread its tentacles all around the Mediterranean till it held Italy and Spain firmly in its grip; and yet by respecting the nominal independence of these countries the power which it had over them was cleverly concealed from the world.
Much of Russia was entangled in the snare. Being once more promised a realization of the fools’ dream of communism, the adherents of Bolshevism were won over into an alliance. By propaganda promising the dawn of a new day of freedom, the enthusiastic support of the peasants, long oppressed by the sinister strangle-hold of the Soviets, was enlisted in behalf of the new combination.
The old Pan-Islam spirit of the Moslems was vigorously exploited, and thus a powerful underlying motive force was brought to bear on the furtherance of the scheme.
A substantial Turkish navy was built, and with money furnished by the coalition, Greece, Italy, and Spain were encouraged to build strong navies, too. No one of these navies was big enough to excite much suspicion in England or America, and no one but the coalition and its secret agents knew that these three navies were planned with a view to forming parts of one great whole. With diabolical cunning the gigantic plot against the world had been laid, and no exigency had been overlooked. Then suddenly in the early summer of 1937, the fruits of this vast intrigue appeared. Italy and Spain found themselves committed to an alliance with Constantinople with a view to obtaining complete control of the Mediterranean Sea. Through the work of a body of spies, unique in preparedness and efficiency, France suddenly found her Mediterranean fleet paralyzed, and before she could make a move to defend them, her ships were seized without a blow. With astonishing rapidity the various navies, thus reinforced, were mobilized and operated as a coördinated fleet. England had but few ships in the Mediterranean at the time, and these were soon engaged in battle by overwhelming numbers, and sunk, after putting up the stiffest resistance imaginable against fearful odds. Then Malta and Egypt were attacked and seized. The south coast of France was occupied with an invading force; all important points on the north coast of Africa were taken, and the control of the Mediterranean became complete, with the exception of Gibraltar.