No further attack was made on _Nissr_, nor was anything seen of any
other air-squadron of International Police. The wireless picked up,
however, a cross-fire of dazed, uncomprehending messages being hurled
east and west, north and south--messages of consternation, doubt,
anger.
The world, wholly at a loss to understand the thing that had come upon
it, was listening to reports from the straggling Azores fleet as it
staggered into various ports. Every continent already was buzzing with
alarm and rage. In less than eighteen hours the calm and peaceful ways
of civilization had received an epoch-making jar. All civilization was
by the ears--it had become a hornet's nest prodded by a pole no one
could understand or parry.
And the Master, sitting at his desk with reports and messages piling
up before him, with all controls at his finger-tips, smiled very
grimly to himself.
"If they show such hysteria at just the initial stages of the game,"
he murmured, "what will they show when--"
The Legion had already begun to fall into well-disciplined routine,
each man at his post, each doing duty to the full, whether that
duty lay in pilot-house or cooks' galley, in engine-room or pit, in
sick-bay or chartroom.
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