: Lords of the Stratosphere by Burks Arthur J - Science fiction Science Fiction; Astounding Stories

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1896. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

THE CRUISE OF A COMMERCE-DESTROYER.

BY YATES STIRLING, JUN.

Like a picture in a kinetoscope, all this has changed. Every man on board has awakened from his lethargy. All hands are alert and gazing at the horizon to the eastward. What is the cause of this sudden awakening? Two words from the lookout in the foretop: "Sail ho!" Yes, broad on the port-bow can be seen a low line of black smoke that to any but a sailor's eye would appear to be a cloud on the distant horizon. Scarcely a quarter of an hour, and with all speed the cruiser is cutting the sea in the direction of the fast-approaching smoke.

Eager young officers have ascended into the tops to be the first to make out the character of the stranger. In the foretop are two midshipmen, still in their teens, class-mates at the Naval Academy, and stanch friends. Scarcely a thought has one the other does not share. With that reckless ambition that is one of the attributes of youth they are both longing for excitement. Their dreams of battle and glory have toppled like a castle of cards.

Once only, while coming out of a neutral port, she had to run the gauntlet of two of the enemy's cruisers, but with her superior speed two hours sufficed to put the enemy hull-down astern, with but slight damage to the commerce-destroyer. Her orders were, on the outbreak of the war "to capture or destroy the enemy's commerce wherever met; refuse battle," and this order had been faithfully carried out. All hands had grown rich in prize-money; fresh provisions were obtained in abundance.

Coal was the problem. It had been attempted to coal at sea from captured vessels, but this mode could not be relied upon to replenish the bunkers of a ship with such a tremendous expenditure. So a certain amount of risk had to be run in coaling in neutral ports.

The stranger has drawn near, and is soon made out to be a merchantman, an ocean liner, one of the greyhounds that had plied between New York and Harborport before the outbreak of hostilities. Large volumes of black smoke from her immense smoke-pipes show she has scented danger, and is making all speed to escape.

The young officers in the foretop are thrilled with excitement as their glass shows them the character of the stranger. The younger is a boy of eighteen, his light hair and blue eyes betokening his Saxon ancestry. He is clad in a neat-fitting blue uniform, and his cap set jauntily on the back of his head revealed a mass of light curly locks. With his eyes fairly sparkling, he bears a striking contrast to his companion. Dark and sullen, with lowering eyes and heavy forehead, the other showed not by a single sign that he realizes that in a short time the first and long-cherished battle of his life will be enacted.

The younger lad has dreamed of battles both in his sleep and his waking moments, in which he has cut his way with his sword to honor and distinction. He has oftentimes pictured his friends, his mother, and his sweetheart reading of his heroic deeds in the daily papers of his home, and now it seems to his youthful mind his dreams are to be fulfilled.

The other lad is not a dreamer. Morose, almost cynical, he never gives himself up to such reveries. To him everything appears in a less gilded light. He knows that if the stranger has not superior speed, his services and his companion's will soon be needed on the deck below.

The two ships are now within battle range, and the thunder of their heavy ordnance breaks the stillness of the ocean.

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