“The towns are mere heaps of ruins and the railways utterly useless. I left twenty ships to patrol the frontier and stop any further movements into Russia, and twenty more are strung out in a line from the Caspian to the head of the Red Sea to cut communications between Asia and Africa. “We came westward over Odessa this afternoon, and had a skirmish, in which, I am sorry to say, I lost five ships, but we destroyed twenty Russians, blew up the dockyard, and shelled the city by way of punishment. And now I’ve got myself and a hundred and thirty ships to place at your disposal for the present. There is nothing more to be feared from the East, for by to-morrow night, I think, the Asiatics will be thoroughly terrorised.” “You have done more than I have in the way of slaughter and destruction,” said Alan. “But there will be some fearful work along the Russian frontier to-morrow morning. The Tsarina, as you call her, is concentrating her forces at Kieff, Vitebsk, Dünaburg, and Vilna for a descent upon Germany. I have ordered those four places to be destroyed as soon as possible after sunrise, and I am just starting now, so you had better come with me and order your ships to follow us.” Both the commanders felt, as their combined squadrons were winging their way towards the Russian frontier, that the events of the next twenty-four hours or so would go far towards deciding the issues of the war, and therefore the fate of the world. Alexis had given up the command of the _Isma_ for the night to his first lieutenant, and was travelling on board the _Avenger_, in order that he and Alan might finally arrange their plans for the terrible deeds that were to be done on the following day. Both of them were serious almost to depression, for it must be remembered that neither possessed that love of fighting and slaughter which distinguishes the professional soldier of the nineteenth century. Armed with the most awful weapons ever wielded by human hands, they had already, within the space of a few hours, hurled millions of their fellow-creatures into eternity and made thousands of homes desolate which a couple of days ago were happy. Now they were going to repeat the tragedy, on how vast a scale neither of them knew. Before the next sunset a red line of blood and flame would mark the frontier between Russia and Germany. All the horrors of months of the older warfare would be concentrated into those few fatal hours. Those who were to do battle in the air would hurl their irresistible lightnings at each other more as gods than as men, while on earth the unresisting swarms could only stand in helpless agony of suspense waiting for the death from which there was no possibility of flying.