Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/164

152 them for hundreds of thousands of miles, and find them out when they were fighting within the bounds of the Solar System.

Yet such was the case. The giant forces which had been let loose on that occasion were not exhausted in the battle area. They interacted upon one another until a vast vacuum, a space absolutely devoid of ether, was formed, and this slowly travelled through space as a great wave. It sped on and on without anyone being aware of its existence or the destruction it might occasion. It passed through the orbit of Neptune and rolled on until it came to Jupiter. Then it passed over the two moons between which the Anglo-Saxon and Sirian fleets were contending in deadly combat. The result of the vacuum was that the two moons were driven towards one another by a colossal force. Most of the officers and crews were suddenly startled by observing that the two discs on either side of them, which had hitherto been so small, were rapidly