第 35 页

nebulous glow of swiftly driving shapes. Presently he could count them.

There were four and twenty. The first fleet of aeroplanes had come!

Beyond appeared a yet greater glow.

He swept round in a half circle, staring at this advancing fleet.

It flew in a wedge-like shape, a triangular flight of gigantic

phosphorescent shapes sweeping nearer through the lower air. He made a

swift calculation of their pace, and spun the little wheel that brought

the engine forward. He touched a lever and the throbbing effort of the

engine ceased. He began to fall, fell swifter and swifter. He aimed at

the apex of the wedge. He dropped like a stone through the whistling

air. It seemed scarce a second from that soaring moment before he struck

the foremost aeroplane.

No man of all that black multitude saw the coming of his fate, no man

among them dreamt of the hawk that struck downward upon him out of

the sky. Those who were not limp in the agonies of air-sickness, were

craning their black necks and staring to see the filmy city that was

rising out of the haze, the rich and splendid city to which "Massa Boss"

had brought their obedient muscles. Bright teeth gleamed and the glossy

faces shone. They had heard of Paris. They knew they were to have lordly

times among the "poor white" trash. And suddenly Graham struck them.

He had aimed at the body of the aeroplane, but at the very last instant

a better idea had flashed into his mind. He twisted about and struck

near the edge of the starboard wing with all his accumulated weight. He

was jerked back as he struck. His prow went gliding across its smooth

expanse towards the rim. He felt the forward rush of the huge fabric

sweeping him and his aeropile along with it, and for a moment that

seemed an age he could not tell what was happening. He heard a thousand

throats yelling, and perceived that his machine was balanced on the edge

of the gigantic float, and driving down, down; glanced over his shoulder

and saw the backbone of the aeroplane and the opposite float swaying up.

He had a vision through the ribs of sliding chairs, staring faces, and

hands clutching at the tilting guide bars. The fenestrations in the

further float flashed open as the aeronaut tried to right her. Beyond,

he saw a second aeroplane leaping steeply to escape the whirl of its

heeling fellow. The broad area of swaying wings seemed to jerk upward.

He felt his aeropile had dropped clear, that the monstrous fabric, clean

overturned, hung like a sloping wall above him.

He did not clearly understand that he had struck the side float of the

aeroplane and slipped off, but he perceived that he was flying free on

the down glide and rapidly nearing earth. What had he done? His heart

throbbed like a noisy engine in his throat and for a perilous instant

he could not move his levers because of the paralysis of his hands. He

wrenched the levers to throw his engine back, fought for two seconds

against the weight of it, felt himself righting driving horizontally,

set the engine beating again.

He looked upward and saw two aeroplanes glide shouting far overhead,

looked back, and saw the main body of the fleet opening out and rushing

upward and outward; saw the one he had struck fall edgewise on and

strike like a gigantic knife-blade along the wind-wheels below it.

He put down his stern and looked again. He drove up heedless of his

direction as he watched. He saw the wind-vanes give, saw the huge fabric

strike the earth, saw its downward vans crumple with the weight of its

descent, and then the whole mass turned over and smashed, upside down,

upon the sloping wheels. Throb, throb, throb, pause. Suddenly from

the heaving wreckage a thin tongue of white fire licked up towards the

zenith. And then he was aware of a huge mass flying through the air

towards him, and turned upwards just in time to escape the charge--if

it was a charge--of a second aeroplane. It whirled by below, sucked

him down a fathom, and nearly turned him over in the gust of its close

passage.

He became aware of three others rushing towards him, aware of the urgent

necessity of beating above them. Aeroplanes were all about him, circling

wildly to avoid him, as it seemed. They drove past him, above, below,

eastward and westward. Far away to the westward was the sound of a

collision, and two falling flares. Far away to the southward a second

squadron was coming. Steadily he beat upward. Presently all the

aeroplanes were below him, but for a moment he doubted the height he had

of them, and did not swoop again. And then he came down upon a second

victim and all its load of soldiers saw him coming. The big machine

heeled and swayed as the fear maddened men scrambled to the stern

for their weapons. A score of bullets sung through the air, and there

flashed a star in the thick glass wind-screen that protected him. The

aeroplane slowed and dropped to foil his stroke, and dropped too low.

Just in time he saw the wind-wheels of Bromley hill rushing up towards

him, and spun about and up as the aeroplane he had chased crashed among

them. All its voices wove into a felt of yelling. The great fabric

seemed to be standing on end for a second among the heeling and

splintering vans, and then it flew to pieces. Huge splinters came flying

through the air, its engines burst like shells. A hot rush of flame shot

overhead into the darkling sky.

"_Two!_" he cried, with a bomb from overhead bursting as it fell, and

forthwith he was beating up again. A glorious exhilaration possessed

him now, a giant activity. His troubles about humanity, about his

inadequacy, were gone for ever. He was a man in battle rejoicing in his

power. Aeroplanes seemed radiating from him in every direction, intent

only upon avoiding him, the yelling of their packed passengers came in

short gusts as they swept by. He chose his third quarry, struck hastily

and did but turn it on edge. It escaped him, to smash against the tall

cliff of London wall. Flying from that impact he skimmed the darkling

ground so nearly he could see a frightened rabbit bolting up a slope. He

jerked up steeply, and found himself driving over south London with the

air about him vacant. To the right of him a wild riot of signal rockets

from the Ostrogites banged tumultuously in the sky. To the south the

wreckage of half a dozen air ships flamed, and east and west and north

the air ships fled before him. They drove away to the east and north,

and went about in the south, for they could not pause in the air.

In their present confusion any attempt at evolution would have meant

disastrous collisions. He could scarcely realize the thing he had done.

In every quarter aeroplanes were receding. They were receding. They

dwindled smaller and smaller. They were in flight!

He passed two hundred feet or so above the Roehampton stage. It was

black with people and noisy with their frantic shouting. But why was

the Wimbledon Park stage black and cheering, too? The smoke and flame of

Streatham now hid the three further stages. He curved about and rose

to see them and the northern quarters. First came the square masses of

Shooter's Hill into sight from behind the smoke, lit and orderly with

the aeroplane that had landed and its disembarking negroes. Then came

Blackheath, and then under the corner of the reek the Norwood stage. On

Blackheath no aeroplane had landed but an aeropile lay upon the guides.

Norwood was covered by a swarm of little figures running to and fro in a

passionate confusion. Why? Abruptly he understood. The stubborn

defence of the flying stages was over, the people were pouring into the

under-ways of these last strongholds of Ostrog's usurpation. And then,

from far away on the northern border of the city, full of glorious

import to him, came a sound, a signal, a note of triumph, the leaden

thud of a gun. His lips fell apart, his face was disturbed with emotion.

He drew an immense breath. "They win," he shouted to the empty air; "the

people win!" The sound of a second gun came like an answer. And then he

saw the aeropile on Blackheath was running down its guides to launch.

It lifted clean and rose. It shot up into the air, driving straight

southward and away from him.

In an instant it came to him what this meant. It must needs be Ostrog

in flight. He shouted and dropped towards it. He had the momentum of

his elevation and fell slanting down the air and very swiftly. It rose

steeply at his approach. He allowed for its velocity and drove straight

upon it.

It suddenly became a mere flat edge, and behold! he was past it, and

driving headlong down with all the force of his futile blow.

He was furiously angry. He reeled the engine back along its shaft and

went circling up. He saw Ostrog's machine beating up a spiral before

him. He rose straight towards it, won above it by virtue of the impetus

of his swoop and by the advantage and weight of a man. He dropped

headlong--dropped and missed again! As he rushed past he saw the face of

Ostrog's aeronaut confident and cool and in Ostrog's attitude a wincing

resolution. Ostrog was looking steadfastly away from him--to the south.

He realized with a gleam of wrath how bungling his flight must be. Below

he saw the Croyden hills. He jerked upward and once more he gained on

his enemy.

He glanced over his shoulder and his attention was arrested by a strange

thing. The eastward stage, the one on Shooter's Hill, appeared to lift;

a flash changing to a tall grey shape, a cowled figure of smoke and

dust, jerked into the air. For a moment this cowled figure stood

motionless, dropping huge masses of metal from its shoulders, and then

it began to uncoil a dense head of smoke. The people had blown it up,

aeroplane and all! As suddenly a second flash and grey shape sprang

up from the Norwood stage. And even as he stared at this came a dead

report, and the air wave of the first explosion struck him. He was flung

up and sideways.

For a moment the aeropile fell nearly edgewise with her nose down,

and seemed to hesitate whether to overset altogether. He stood on his

wind-shield wrenching the wheel that swayed up over his head. And then

the shock of the second explosion took his machine sideways.

He found himself clinging to one of the ribs of his machine, and the air

was blowing past him and upward. He seemed to be hanging quite still in

the air, with the wind blowing up past him. It occurred to him that he

was falling. Then he was sure that he was falling. He could not look

down.

He found himself recapitulating with incredible swiftness all that had

happened since his awakening, the days of doubt the days of Empire, and

at last the tumultuous discovery of Ostrog's calculated treachery, he

was beaten but London was saved. London was saved!

The thought had a quality of utter unreality. Who was he? Why was he

holding so tightly with his hands? Why could he not leave go? In such

a fall as this countless dreams have ended. But in a moment he would

wake....

His thoughts ran swifter and swifter. He wondered if he should see Helen

again. It seemed so unreasonable that he should not see her again. It

_must_ be a dream! Yet surely he would meet her. She at least was real.

She was real. He would wake and meet her.

Although he could not look at it, he was suddenly aware that the earth

was very near.

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