Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/209

Rh they landed the soldiers, were chased among the clouds from hemisphere to hemisphere until they were run down and, with their living freight, hurled to the ground.

James Tarrant had established his headquarters at the Kentucky cavern, and all the torpedo-boats occasionally came there to report progress. The news of the success of his invention was flashed across to England, and roused the slumbering energies of resistance and the thirst for vengeance. Hundreds of new Electro-Ednogen instruments were constructed and fitted on to the battleships, cruisers, and torpedo-boats that were just finished at the dockyards. The former cruised over every square mile of land and sea, and searched out and beat to death every enemy's ship they could find. Cordons of torpedo-boats hung in space outside the earth's atmosphere ready to destroy every ship that attempted to escape, and there were several exciting chases that lasted as far as the moon, but hardly a ship got away.