OVER THE BORDER BY MORGAN ROBERTSON PUBLISHED BY McCLURE'S MAGAZINE AND METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE CONTENTS[1] [Footnote 1: From _Success Magazine_, New York.] THE LAST BATTLESHIP ABSOLUTE ZERO OVER THE BORDER THE FIRE WORSHIPER THE BABY THE GRINDING OF THE MILLS THE EQUATION THE TWINS THE BROTHERS KISMET THE MATE OF HIS SOUL THE VOICES THE SLEEP WALKER OVER THE BORDER THE LAST BATTLESHIP It was nearly midnight, and the battleship _Argyll_, stripped to bare steel, was drifting with banked fires but a full head of steam, waiting for daybreak to discover the enemy. New things were expected in this coming action. Wireless news had told of the presence of submarines, as yet unproved in war, and before the going down of the sun a high-power telescope on board had brought to view two small moving spots in the distant sky--airships; but whether they were friends or enemies had not been determined. No hammocks were piped that night--men slept at their stations or remained awake and talked; and aft on the superstructure a group of officers off duty discussed the possibilities of future warfare, and the coming place of the battleship under the menace of the bomb-dropping dirigible balloon and the invisible submarine with its deadly torpedo. All had taken part, some with laughter and joking, others with the earnest conviction of serious thought, and the discussion finally had narrowed down to a wordy combat between the highest and the lowest of the commissioned officers, Mr. Clarkson, the executive officer, and young Mr. Felton, temporarily the torpedo lieutenant. Mr. Felton had become dogmatic in his assertions, which is excusable at sea only in the young. "But, Mr. Felton," said the executive officer, slowly and earnestly, "have a little common sense. Can't you see that conditions must change, that the battleship, like the steamship, has almost reached the limit of size and development, while the airship and the submarine are in their infancy?" "But there must be a center, a nucleus of the fleet. How can you preserve the line of battle without such a backbone? Where will you put the admiral?" "Up in the air, where he can see things?" "And be seen, too, and shot at."