"And," said Admiral Dumont, "even if we cannot take the works and use them, we may destroy them, and so rid the world of this detestable commercial tyranny which would make war a matter of poll-tax. We shall open fire at six. Ah, here we are at the wharf. Now let us go and see that everything is ready. Admiral Nazanoff, I believe you are my senior in service; it will therefore be yours to fire the first shot. The _Caiman_ shall fire the second." "And I shall ask you, admiral," said the count to Nazanoff, "as a personal favour, and also, as I will say frankly, a matter of personal vengeance, to be allowed to fire that first gun." "My dear count," replied the admiral, "with the greatest pleasure. It shall be laid by the best gunner on board the _Ivan_, and your hand shall send the shot, I hope, into the vitals of these accursed works. If we could only manage to drop a hundred-pound melinite shell into the right place, it would do a great deal." CHAPTER XXXI Until five o'clock there was silence both in the works and on the ships in the harbour. Then, as the southern sun began to climb on its upward curve, the eight searchlights on the towers blazed out, looking ghostly white in the twilight. They were arranged so that they formed two intersecting triangles on each face of the works. From the top of the western gate flamed a huge star. It was a ten-million-candle-power light, and its radiance, cast directly upon the harbour, was so intense that while the ships were flooded with light, the dim, watery rays of the sun made twilight in comparison with it. "That is well managed," said Admiral Nazanoff to the count as they were taking their early coffee on the bridge of the ice-breaker. "I suppose that devil-ray, or whatever they call it, is running along those lights, and so making a barrier that no living thing can pass without destruction. It is an amazing invention, whatever it is; but it is murder, not war. Still, if it comes to an assault, we must rush it. Meanwhile it is to be hoped that our guns will have destroyed their infernal apparatus. "You see, we have six ships here in line abreast, and twelve guns, each throwing a melinite shell of not less than a hundred pounds, are trained on the face of the building. When your excellency has fired the first shot they will open, and, at the same time, fifty smaller quick-firers will sweep the walls in such a fashion that no living thing will exist for a moment, either on top of them or in front. In fact, once let us destroy the apparatus which generates that horrible devil-ray, I can give it no other name, and the works are ours."