Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/108

96 the Anglo-Saxons turned on the full power of the engines and charged the enemy with their rams. They rushed through the ships without shock or jar, as if they did not exist at all. Then one of the officers suddenly started the idea that an ingenious trick had been played on them by the enemy, and that the appearance of the ships which they could not destroy was only an optical illusion. Tests were immediately made, and this was found to be the case. They had been deceived by a number of reflections which had been thrown into space by a dozen ships some hundreds of miles in front of them. A cry of rage and despair went up through the whole of the fleet when they discovered how they had been duped. But there was no time to give way to these feelings of useless rage; the mistake must be remedied as soon as possible. The ships of the enemy that had been throwing the reflections were allowed to go where they pleased, for they were not numerous