The Mary Rose swung as she lifted, crashing right through the destroyer's fragile hull. The magazine exploded into the great hydrogen cylinder above; but Brand's yacht went on unscathed through a sphere of flame, on into space, with wreckage and mangled bodies streaming behind her.
XIV
THE STORY OF THE SHIPS
It is time now to tell the story of the ships, the genealogy of the Mary Rose, the secret of Brand's aerial wars, and how the great outlaw gained command of the air.
Down through the ages sweeps that Pageant of the Ships, with oar, sail, steam, electric, etheric power, cleaving the centuries since the world was young.
First come the oared Long Ships, the slave-manned galleys, the argosies of the Phoenicians, the Greeks, of Carthage, Rome, Byzantium, of Barbary, Norway, Venice, Genoa, Spain. They are human-wielded, sea-compelling engines.
Then come the Great Ships, the device of Henry VIII. They shattered the galleons of Spain, they wrecked the Dutch Republic, destroyed the Empire of France, gave Britain the command of the sea. They explored the planet, they created the greater commerce. They come under sail, they need no slave-engines, these white-winged servants of the winds, winged conquerors of all seas.
Then come the iron ships which laid the cables, peopled the lands, and narrowed down the world into a house for man; the steel ships, smoke-maned conquerors of both wind and sea, not man-driven galleys, but steam-driven carriers, racing cities, and cruising fortresses.
They drove the white sails from the face of the sea, drove them to refuge in the skies. And so sweeps the majestic pageant of the ships into the golden age of seamanship. "There shall be no more sea," for man has taken wings to cleave the air. Poised on broad aeroplanes, alive with power flashed to them through space, the aerial battleships have claimed the very pathways of the eagles. Rolling down the cloud-seas come the snow-white, glittering giants of the electric age, England's dread Channel Fleet, surely the last supreme achievement of mankind.
And far aloft, attended by white cirrii, hangs one small star-like speck in the blue zenith, an unarmed private yacht offering to meet the entire navy of Britain and all the fleets of Europe in single combat.