[PROLOGUE]—A RACE FOR A WOMAN
[I.] A MOMENTOUS EXPERIMENT
[II.] NORAH'S GOOD-BYE
[III.] SEEN UNDER THE MOON
[IV.] THE SHADOW OF THE TERROR
[V.] A GLIMPSE OF THE DOOM
[VI.] THE NOTE OF WAR
[VII.] CAUGHT!
[VIII.] FIRST BLOOD
[IX.] THE "FLYING FISH" APPEARS
[X.] FIRST BLOWS FROM THE AIR
[XI.] THE TRAGEDY OF THE TWO SQUADRONS
[XII.] HOW LONDON TOOK THE NEWS
[XIII.] A CRIME AND A MISTAKE
[XIV.] THE EVE OF BATTLE
[XV.] THE STRIFE OF GIANTS
[XVI.] HOW THE FRENCH LANDED AT PORTSMOUTH
[XVII.] AWAY FROM THE WARPATH
[XVIII.] A GLIMPSE OF THE PERIL
[XIX.] A CHANGE OF SCENE
[XX.] THE NIGHT OF TERROR BEGINS—
[XXI.] —AND ENDS
[XXII.] DISASTER
[XXIII.] THE OTHER CAMPAIGN BEGINS
[XXIV.] TOM BOWCOCK—PITMAN
[XXV.] PREPARING FOR ACTION
[XXVI.] THE FIRST BOMBARDMENT OF LONDON
[XXVII.] LENNARD'S ULTIMATUM
[XXVIII.] CONCERNING ASTRONOMY AND OYSTERS
[XXIX.] THE LION WAKES
[XXX.] MR PARMENTER SAYS
[XXXI.] JOHN CASTELLAN'S THREAT
[XXXII.] A VIGIL IN THE NIGHT
[XXXIII.] MR PARMENTER RETURNS
[XXXIV.] THE "AURIOLE"
[XXXV.] THE "AURIOLE" HOISTS THE WHITE ENSIGN
[XXXVI.] A PARLEY AT ALDERSHOT
[XXXVII.] THE VERDICT OF SCIENCE
[XXXVIII.] WAITING FOR DOOM
[XXXIX.] THE LAST FIGHT
[EPILOGUE]—"AND ON EARTH, PEACE!"

THE WORLD PERIL OF 1910

PROLOGUE

A RACE FOR A WOMAN

In Clifden, the chief coast town of Connemara, there is a house at the end of a triangle which the two streets of the town form, the front windows of which look straight down the beautiful harbour and bay, whose waters stretch out beyond the islands which are scattered along the coast and, with the many submerged reefs, make the entrance so difficult.

In the first-floor double-windowed room of this house, furnished as a bed-sitting room, there was a man sitting at a writing-table—not an ordinary writing-table, but one the dimensions of which were more suited to the needs of an architect or an engineer than to those of a writer. In the middle of the table was a large drawing-desk, and on it was pinned a sheet of cartridge paper, which was almost covered with portions of designs.

In one corner there was what might be the conception of an engine designed for a destroyer or a submarine. In another corner there was a sketch of something that looked like a lighthouse, and over against this the design of what might have been a lantern. The top left-hand corner of the sheet was merely a blur of curved lines and shadings and cross-lines, running at a hundred different angles which no one, save the man who had drawn them, could understand the meaning of.

In the middle of the sheet there was a very carefully-outlined drawing in hard pencil of a craft which was different from anything that had ever sailed upon the waters or below them, or, for the matter of that, above them.