"Yes, sir," the scientist replied, approaching. "What is it, sir?"
Still shifty and cringing was he, in presence of the masters; though
with the men beneath him, at the vast plant--and now his importance had
grown till he controlled more than eight thousand--rumor declared him an
intolerable tyrant.

"Tell me, Herzog, what's the condition of the plant, at this present
moment?"

"Just how do you mean, sir?"

"Suppose there were to be trouble, of any kind, how are we fixed for it?
How's the oxygen supply, and--and everything? Good God, man, unlimber!
You're paid to know things and tell 'em. Now, talk."

Thus adjured, Herzog washed his hands with imaginary soap and in a
deprecating voice began:

"Trouble, sir? What trouble could there be? There's not the faintest
sign of any organization among the men. They're submissive as so many
rabbits, sir, and--"

"Damn you, shut up!" roared Flint. "I didn't summon you to come up here
and give me a lecture on labor conditions at the works! The trouble I
refer to is possible outside interference. Maybe some kind of wild-eyed
Socialist upheaval, or attack, or what not. In case it comes, what's our
condition? Tell me, in a few words, and for God's sake keep to the
point! The way you wander, and always have, gives me the creeps!"

Herzog ventured nothing in reply to this outburst, save a conciliatory
leer. Then, collecting his thoughts, he began:

"Well, sir, in a general way, our condition is perfect. We've got two
regiments of rifle and machine gunmen, half of them equipped with the
oxygen bullets. I guarantee that I could have them away from their
benches and machines, and on the fortifications, inside of fifteen
minutes. Slade's armed guards, 2,500 or so, are all ready, too.

"Then, beside that, there are eight 'planes in the hangars, and plenty
of men to take them up. If you wish, sir, I can have others brought in.
The aerial-bomb guns are ready. As for the oxygen supply, Tanks F and L
are full, K is half filled, and N and Q each have about 6,000 gallons,
making a total of--let's see, sir--a total of just about 755,000
gallons."

"How protected? Have you got those bomb-proof overhead nets on, yet?"

"Not yet, sir. That is, not over all the lines of tanks. We ran short of
steel wire, last week, and have only got eight of the tanks under
netting. But the work is going on fast, sir, and--"

"Rush it! At all hazards, get nets over the rest of the tanks. If
anything happens, through this delay, remember, Herzog, I shall hold
you personally responsible, and it will go hard with you!"

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir," murmured the servile wretch. "Anything else,
sir?"

Flint thought a moment, glaring at Herzog with angry eyes, then shook
his head in negation.

"Very well, sir," said Herzog, withdrawing. "I'll go to work at once. By
tomorrow, everything will be safe, I guarantee."

He closed the door softly--as softly as he had spoken--as softly as he
always did everything.

Flint glared at the door.

"The sneaking whelp!" he murmured. "He makes my very flesh crawl. I wish
to heaven he weren't so essential to us; we'd let him go, damned quick!"

"You forget," put in Tiger, "that he knows too much to be let go, ever.
No, he's a fixture. And now, dismiss him from your mind, and let's go
over those telegrams and radiograms again. If there _is_ a new Socialist
revolt under way--and I admit it certainly begins to look like it--we've
got to understand the situation. Slade will have some more reports for
us, in an hour or so. Till then, these must suffice."

Flint, curbing his agitation, sat down at the big table and turned on
the vacuum-glow light, for the October afternoon was foggy--a fog that
mingled with the spray of the vast Falls and hung heavy over the
world--and already daylight was beginning to fail.

"Fools!" he muttered to himself. "Fools, to think they can rebel against
_us_! Ants would have just as much show of success, charging elephants,
as _they_ have against the Air Trust! By tomorrow they'll be wiped out,
smeared out, shattered and annihilated, whoever and wherever they are.
By tomorrow, at the latest. Again I say, blind, suicidal fools!"

"Right you are," assented Waldron, drawing up his chair. "They don't
seem to realize, even yet, that we own the whole round earth and all
that is in it. They don't understand that their rebelling is like a
tribe of naked savages going against a modern army with explosive
bullets. Ah, well, let them learn, let them learn! It takes a whip to
teach a cur. Let them feel the lash, and learn!..."


At this same hour, in the last retreat, near Port Colborne, in the State
of Ontario--once a province of Canada--half a dozen grim and determined
men were gathered together. We already recognize Craig, Grantham and
Gabriel. The other three, like them, all wore the Socialist button and
the little tab of red ribbon that marked them as members of the Fighting
Sections.

"Tonight," Gabriel was saying, as he stood there in the gathering
dusk--they dared not show a light, even behind the drawn curtains of
their refuge--"tonight, comrades, the final die is cast. Everything is
ready, or as nearly ready as we shall ever be able to make it. Our
reports already show that every line of communication has been broken by
one swift, sharp blow. True, in a few hours all these avenues can be
opened up again. By morning, the Niagara works will be in receipt of
messages; trains will be running; the troop-planes will be carrying
their hordes at the command of Flint. By morning, yes. But in the
meantime--"

He spread his fingers, upward, with an expressive gesture.

"By morning," Craig mumbled, "what will there be left to protect?"

A little silence followed. Each was busy with his own thoughts.

All at once, one of the three newcomers spoke--a tall, light-haired
fellow, he seemed, in that dim light, with a strong Southern accent.

"Pardon me for asking, Gabriel," said he, removing a pipe from his
mouth, "or for discussing details familiar to you all. But, coming as I
_have_ come direct from the New Orleans refuge--they blew it up, last
week, you know--of course I haven't got things as clearly in mind yet,
as you-all have. Now, as I understand it, while we manoeuvre over the
plant, blow up the barricades and, if possible, 'get' the oxygen-tanks,
our men on the ground will pour in through the gaps and storm the place,
under the command of Edward Hargreaves. Is that the idea?"

"Exactly, Comrade Marion," answered Gabriel. "You've hit it to a T."

Craig laughed grimly, as he drew at his pipe.

"Just as we're going to hit those big tanks!" said he. "It's tonight or
never, comrades. They're putting steel nets over them, already. By
tomorrow the whole place will be protected by huge grill-work fully a
hundred feet above the tops of the tanks. Oh, they seem to have thought
of everything, those plutes! But they'll be just a shade too late, this
time; just a shade too late!"

Another silence, broken again by the tall Southerner.

"Just let me get this thing quite clear," said he. "We're to start at
5:30, you say, walk past the Welland Canal Feeder out to the Monck
Aviation Grounds, and find everything ready there?"

"Correct," said Gabriel. "All six of us. That's our part of the program.
Comrades you don't know, out there--comrades in the employ of the Air
Trust itself--will have six machines ready. One of them will be the very
machine that they tried to get us with, in the Great Smokies! So you
see, we're going to use the Air Trust equipment, their field and even
their own telenite, to put them out of business forever and to free the
world!"

"Poetic justice, all right enough!" laughed Marion. "At the same time
that we're attacking from an elevation of perhaps three thousand feet,
the lateral attack will be delivered. About how many men do you count,
on, for that?"

"Well," judged Gabriel, "within a ten-mile radius of the plant, at least
a hundred thousand men are waiting, this very instant, with every nerve
keyed up to fighting tension. Scattered in a vast variety of ingenious
and cleverly-devised hiding places, with their chlorine grenades and
their revolvers shooting little hydrocyanic acid gas bullets, they're
waiting the signal--a rocket in mid-heaven."

"Hydrocyanic acid gas!" exclaimed Marion, forgetting to smoke. "Why, one
whiff of that is death!"

"It is," agreed Gabriel. "Remember, this is a war of extermination. It's
a case of _them_ or _us_! And if we're worsted, the whole world loses;
while if they are, then liberty is born! That's why this gas is
justifiable. They'll try to use oxygen-bullets on us, never fear. But
where they can kill ten, with those, we can annihilate a hundred with
our kind. Swine, they have called us, and fools and apes. Well, we
shall see, we shall see, when it comes to an out-and-out fight between
Plutocrat and Proletarian, who is the better man!"

Again came silence. And this time it was Grantham who broke it.

"Comrades," said he, "after you've seen as many Socialists shot down as
_I_ have--shot down and burned, as Brevard was--you'll lose any
lingering ideas of civilized warfare you may still retain. They hunt us
like beasts, prison us in foul traps, ride us down, crush us, break and
tear us, and burn us alive, because we struggle to be free men and
women, not slaves. Now that our hour has struck, now that their lines of
communication and defense are breached, and they--though they still
don't fully understand it--are penned there in their heaven-offending,
monstrous, horrible plant at the Falls, no true man can hesitate to
smash them down with no more compunction than as though they were so
many rattlesnakes or scorpions!

"This isn't 1915, when political and civil rights still existed, and we
weren't hunted outlaws. This is 1925, and conditions are all different.
It's war, war, war to the death, now; and if war is Hell, then _they_
are going to get Hell this time, not we."

Nobody spoke, for a little while; but Marion and Craig smoked
contemplatively, and the others sat there in the dusk, sunk in thought.

All at once a door opened, and the vague form of a woman became visible.

"Comrades, you must go," said she. "It's nearly half past five. By the
time you've got everything in readiness, you'll have no time to lose."

"Right, Catherine," answered Gabriel. "Come, comrades! Up and at it!"

Ten minutes later they all issued forth into the soft gloom. All were in
aviator's dress, and each carried a parcel by a handle held with stout
straps. Had you seen them, you would have noticed they took particular
pains not to jar or shake these parcels, or approach unduly near each
other.

At the door of the refuge, Catherine said good-bye to each, and added
some brave word of cheer. Her farewell to Gabriel was longer than to the
others; and for a moment their hands met and clung.

"Go," she whispered, "go, and God bless you! Go even though it be to
death! Their airmen will take toll of some of the attackers, Gabriel.
Not all the Comrades will return. Oh, may _you_--may _you_!"

"What is written on the Book of Fate, will be," he answered. "Our petty
hopes and fears are nothing, Catherine. If death awaits me, it will be
sweet; for it will come, tonight, in the supreme service of the human
race! Good-bye!"

With a sudden motion, the girl took his face between her hands, and
kissed his forehead. For all her courage and strength, he sensed her
heart wildly beating and he felt her tears.

"Good-bye, Gabriel," she breathed. "Would I might go with you! Would
that my duty did not hold me here! Good-bye!"

Then he was gone, gone with the others, into the thickening obscurity of
the fog-shrouded evening. Now Catherine stood there alone, head bowed
and wet face hidden in both hands.

As the little fighting band disappeared, back to the girl drifted a few
words of song, soft-hummed through the dusk--the deathless chorus of the
International:

"Now comes the hour supreme!
To arms, each in his place!
The new dawn's International
Shall be the human race!..."




CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE ATTACK.


"Halt! Who goes there?"

The challenge rang sharply on the night air, outside a small gate in the
barricade of the Monck Aviation Grounds.

"Liberty!" answered Gabriel, pausing as he gave the password.

"All right, come on," said a vague figure at the gate. The little group
approached. The gate opened. Silently they entered the enclosure.

Another man stepped from a hangar. In his hand he held an electric
flash, which he threw upon the newcomers, one by one.

"Right!" he commented, and took Gabriel by the hand. "This way!"

Ten minutes later, all of them were in the air, save only Gabriel, who
insisted on staying till his entire squad had made a clean getaway. Then
he too rose; and now in a long, swift line, the fighting squadron
straightened away to north-eastward, on the twenty-mile run to Niagara.

The night was foggy, chill and dark. All the aviators had instructions
to fly not less than 2,500 feet high, to keep a careful lookout lest
they collide, and to steer by the lights of the great Air Trust plant.
For, misty though the heavens were, still Gabriel could see the dim glow
of the tremendous aerial search-lights dominating Goat Island--lights
of 5,000,000 candle-power, maintained by current from the Falls,
incessantly sweeping the sky on the lookout for just such perils as now,
indeed, were drawing near.

Momently, as he flew, Gabriel perceived these huge lights growing
brighter, through the mist, and apprehension won upon him.

"Incredibly strong!" he muttered to himself, as he glanced from his
barometer to the shining fog ahead. "Even though the mist will be
thicker over the Falls than anywhere else, there's a good possibility
they may pierce it and pick us up--and _then_, look out for their
'planes and swift, fighting dirigibles!"

He rotated the rising-plane, and now soared to 2,800 feet. Below and on
either side of him, nothing but tenuous fog. Ahead, the
swiftly-approaching fan of radiance, white, dazzling, beautiful, that
seemed to gush from earth so far below and to the eastward. Already the
thunders of the Falls were audible.

"Where are the others?" Gabriel wondered, his thoughts seeming to hum
and roar in his head, in harmony with the shuddering diapason of the
muffler-deadened exhaust. "No way of telling, now. Each man for
himself--and each to do his best!"

And then his thoughts reverted to Catherine; and round his heart a
sudden yearning seemed to strengthen his stern, indomitable
resolve--"Victory or death!"

But now there was scant time for thought. The moment of action was
already close at hand. Far below there, hidden by night and dark and
mist, Gabriel knew a hundred thousand comrades, of the Fighting
Sections, were lying hidden, waiting for the signal to advance.

"And it's time, now!" he said aloud, thrilled by a wondrous sense of
vast responsibility--a sense that on this moment hung the fate of the
world. "It's time for the signal. Now then, up and at them!"

Taking the rocket--a powerful affair, capable of casting an intense,
calcium light--he touched the fuse to a bit of smouldering punk fastened
in a metal cup at his right hand. Then, as it flared, he launched the
rocket far into the void.

Below, came a quick spurt of radiance, in a long, vivid streak that shot
away with incredible rapidity. Gabriel followed it a moment, with his
gaze, then smiled.

"The Rubicon is crossed," said he. "The gates of the Temple of Janus are
open wide--and now comes War!"

He rose again, skimming to a still higher altitude as the glare of the
great Works drew closer and closer underneath. The wind roared in his
ears, louder than the whirling propellers. The whole fabric of the
aeroplane quivered as it climbed, up, up above the rushing, bellowing
cataract.

"Where are the others?" thought he, and reached for a thanatos
projectile, in the rack near the metal cup where the punk still
glowered.

All at once, a glare of light burst upward through the white-glowing
mist; and the 'plane reeled with the air-wave, as now a thunderous
concussion boomed across the empty spaces of the sky.

At the same moment, a faint, ripping noise mounted to Gabriel--a sound
for all the world like the tearing of stout canvas. Then followed a
chattering racket, something like distant mowing-machines at work; and
now all blent to a steady, determined uproar. Gabriel almost thought to
hear, as he launched his own projectile, far sounds as of the shouts and
cries of men; but of this he could not make sure.

"They're at it, anyhow!" he exulted. "At it, at last! By the way our men
have launched the attack, the first explosion must have breached a wall!
God! What wouldn't I give to be down there, in the thick of it, rather
than here! I--"

_Crash_!

Again a spouting geyser of light and uproar burst into mid-air.

"That was _my_ thanatos speaking!" cried Gabriel. "Now for another!"

Before he could drop it, as he circled round and round, directly over
the great, flailing beams of the Air Trust search-lights, a third
detonation shattered the heavens, nearly unseating him. Up sprang the
roar, with wonderful intensity, reflected from the earth as from a giant
sounding-board. And Gabriel noted, with keen satisfaction, that one of
the huge light-beams had gone dark.

"Put out _one_ of them, anyway, so far!" thought he, and swung again to
westward, and once more dropped a messenger of death to tyranny.

Now the bombardment became general. Trust aerial-gun projectiles began
bursting all about. Every second or two, terrible concussions leaped
toward the zenith; and the earth, hidden somewhere down there below the
fog-blanket, seemed flaming upward like a huge volcano. One by one the
search-lights, whipping the sky, went black; and now the glow of them
was fast diminishing, only to be replaced by a ruddier and more
intermittent glare.

"The plant's burning, at last," thought Gabriel. "Heaven grant the fire
may spread to the oxygen-tanks! If we can only get _those_--!"

Again he launched a projectile, and again he circled over the doomed
plant.

A swift black shape swooped by him. He had just time to exchange a yell
of warning, when it was gone. The near peril gripped his heart, but did
not shake it.

"Close call!" said he.

If that machine and his had met, good-bye forever! But after all, the
danger of collision in mid-air, or of being struck by a projectile from
some other machine, above, was no greater than his comrades on the
ground were facing. Not so great, perhaps. Many a one would meet his
death from the aerial attack. In a war like this, a thousand perils
threatened. Gabriel only hoped that Hargreaves, down below there, could
hold them back, away, till the walls should have been destroyed.

Circling, ever circling, now hearing some echoes of the earth-battle,
some grenade-volleys and rapid-fire clattering, now deafened and all but
blinded by the vast, up-belching explosions of the thanatos projectiles,
Gabriel flew among the drifting mists and vapors. Still was he guided by
one or two search-lights; but most of these were gone, now. Yet the
glare of the conflagration, below, was luridly shuddering through the
fog, painting it all a dull and awful red.

Red! Suddenly words came into Gabriel's mind--the words of his own poem:

... Red as blood, red as blood! The blood of the shattered miner,
Blood of the boy in the rifle pits, blood of the coughing child-slave,
Blood of the mangled trainman, blood that the Carpenter shed!

"For your sake! For the world's sake, this!" he cried, and hurled
another thanatos. "If ever war of liberation was holy, this is that
war!"

Suddenly, through all the turmoil of shattering explosions, tossing
air-currents and drifting, acrid smoke, he became conscious of a sudden,
swift-flying pursuer.

By the light of the burning Plant, down there somewhere in the vapors of
the thunderous Falls, he saw a hawk-like 'plane that swooped toward him
with incredible velocity, savage and lean and black.

Off to the right, a sudden spattering of shots in mid-air told him the
battle in the sky was likewise being engaged. He saw vague, veiled
explosions, there, then a swift, falling trail of flame. A pang shot
through his heart. Had one of his companions fallen and been dashed to
death? He could not tell--he had no time to wonder, even, for already
the attacker was upon him, the swift Air Trust _epervier,_ one of the
dreaded air-fleet of the world-monopoly!

Gabriel had just time to swerve from the attack, and swoop
aloft--dropping his next to last projectile as he did so--when the
whirling shape zoomed past, swung round and once more charged. He saw,
vaguely, two men sat in it. One was the pilot, a "Gray" or Cosmos
mercenary. The other--could it be? Yes, there was no mistaking! The
other was Slade himself, commander of the hireling army of Plutocracy!

Out from the attacking 'plane jetted sadden spurts of fire. Gabriel
heard the zip-zip-zip of bullets; heard a ripping tear, as one of his
canvas wings was punctured--God help him, had that explosive bullet
struck a wire or a stay!

Then, maddened to despair; and burning with fierce rage against this
monster of the upper air that now was hurling death at him, he once more
"banked," brought his machine sharp round, and charged, full drive, at
the attacker!

This tactic for a second must have disconcerted the Air Trust
mercenaries. Gabriel's speed was terrific. With stupefying suddenness,
the _epervier_ loomed up ahead of him.

"Now!" he shouted. "Take this, from me!"

Half rising from his seat, he hurled his last remaining projectile full
at Slade, then wrenched his own 'plane off sharply to the left.

A thunderous concussion and a dazzling burst of light told him his
chance shot had been effective.

He got a second's vision of a shattered black mass, a tangle of girders,
wires, collapsed planes, that seemed to hang a moment in midair--of
whirling bodies--of wreckage indescribable. Then the broken debris
plunged with awful speed and vanished through the red-glowing mist.

Even as he shuddered, sickened at the terrible, though necessary deed,
the deed which alone could save him from swift death, an overwhelming
air-wave from the terrible explosion struck his speeding machine, the
machine captured in the Great Smokies from the Air Trust itself.

It heeled over like an unballasted yacht under the lash of a hurricane.
Vainly Gabriel jerked at wheel and levers; he could not right it.

As it seemed to come under control, a stay snapped. The 'plane swooped,
yawned forward and stuck its nose into an air-hole, caused by the vast,
uprising smoke and heat of the huge conflagration beneath.

Then, lost and beyond all guidance, it somersaulted, slid away down a
long drop and, whirling wildly over and over, plunged with Gabriel into
the glowing, smoking, detonating void!




CHAPTER XXXV.

TERROR AND RETREAT.


When, despite Flint's imperative orders, Slade failed to reopen the
lines of communication for him, before nightfall, and when President
Supple wired in code for a little more time in obeying Air Trust orders,
the Billionaire recognized that something of terrible menace now had
suddenly broken in upon his dream of universal power.

He summoned Waldron and Herzog for another conference and together they
feverishly planned to put the works under defense, until such time as
troops could be got through to them.

The plant regiment was mustered and the Cosmos mercenaries and scabs
were made ready. The machine-guns were unlimbered for action and large
quantities of ammunition were delivered to them and to the aerial-bomb
guns, as nightfall lowered. Herzog set eight hundred men to work
covering all the tanks possible, with wire netting of heavy steel. The
search-lights were all ordered into use; steam and electrical
connections were made, the air-fleet was manned, and everything was done
that unlimited wealth and bitter hate of the Workers could suggest.

With curses on the fog, which hid the upper air from view, the old man
now stood at one of the west windows of his inner office--the office on
the top floor of the main Administration Building, overlooking nearly
the whole Plant.

"Damn the weather!" he snarled, his gold teeth glinting. "In addition to
all this mist from the Falls, there's a regular cloud-bank settling
down, tonight! Under cover of it, what may not happen? Nothing could
have been worse, Waldron. Though we shall soon control the air, that
won't be enough, so long as fogs and mists escape us. Our next
problem--hello! Now what the devil's _that_?"

"What's what?" retorted Waldron, testily. He had been drinking rather
more heavily than usual, that day, both because of the dull weather and
because the Falls invariably got on his nerves, during his brief
sojourns there. Away from New York and his favorite haunts, Waldron was
lost. "What's what?" he repeated with an ugly look. "This roaring,
glaring, trembling place gives me--"

"That! That light in the sky!" cried Flint, excitedly pointing. "See?
No--it's gone now! But it looked like--like a rocket! A signal, of some
kind, thrown from an aeroplane! A--"

Waldron laughed harshly.

"Seeing things, eh?" he sneered, coming across to the window, himself,
and peering out. "_I_ don't see anything! Nothing here to worry about,
Flint. With all these walls and guns, and netting, and air-ships and a
private army and all, what more do you want? Not getting nervous in your
old age, are you, eh?" he gibed bitterly. "Or is your conscience
beginning to wake up, as the graveyard becomes more a probability
than--"

"Enough!" Flint snapped at him. "When you drink, Waldron, you're an
idiot! Now, forget all this, and let's get down to work. I tell you, I
just now saw a signal-light up there in the mist. There's trouble coming
tonight, as sure as we own the earth. Trouble, maybe big trouble.
Merciful God, I--I rather think we oughtn't to be here, in person, eh?
We'd be much better off out of here. If there--there should be any
fighting, you know--"

His voice broke in a falsetto pipe. Waldron laughed brutally.

"Bravo!" cried he, with flushed and mottled face. "You'll do, Flint! I
see, right now, the firing-line is the life for you! Well, let the row
come, and devil take it, say I. Better anything than--"

The sentence was never finished, For suddenly a shattering explosion
hurled a vast section of the western encircling wall outward, out into
the River, and, where but a moment before, the partners had been gazing
at a high concrete-and-steel barrier, with electric lights on top, now
only a huge gap appeared, through which the foam-tossed current could be
seen leaping swiftly onward toward the Falls.

Hurled back from the window by the force of the explosion, both men were
struck dumb with terror and amaze. Flint rallied first, and with a cry
of rage, inarticulate as a beast's howl, sprang to the window again.

Outside, a scene of desolation and wild activity was visible. The great,
paved courtyard, flanked by the turbine houses and the wall, on one
hand, and on the other by the oxygen tanks' huge bulk that loomed
vaguely through the electric-lighted mist, now had begun to swarm with
men.

Flint saw a few forms lying prone under the hard glare of the arcs and
vacuum lights. Others were crawling, writhing, making strange
contortions. Here, there, men with rifles were running to take their
posts. Hoarse orders were shouted, and shrill replies rang back.

Then, all at once, a kind of sputtering series of small explosions began
to rip along the edge of the south wall. And now, machine-guns began to
talk, with a dry, hard metallic clatter. And--though whence these came,
Flint could not see--grenades began flying over the wall and bursting in
the court. Though unwounded, men fell everywhere these gas-projectiles
exploded--fell, stone dead and stiffening at once--fell, in strange,
monstrous, awful attitudes of death.

Steam began billowing up; and crackling electrical discharges leaped
along the naked wires of the outer barricades.

The whole Plant shook and rattled with the violent concussions of the
aerial-bomb guns, already searching the upper air with shrapnel.

Somewhere, out of the range of vision, another terrible shock made the
building tremble to its nethermost foundation; and wild yells and cries,
as of a charge, a repulse, a savage and determined rush, echoed through
the vast enclosure. Came a third detonation--and, blinding in its
intensity, a globe of fire burst almost beneath the window, five stories
below.

The partners, shaking and pale, retreated hastily. A swift,
upward-rising shape swept over the courtyard and was gone--one of the
air-fleet now launched to meet the attackers.

Far below a sudden crumbling shudder of masonry told the Billionaire
not a moment was to be lost, for already one wing of the Administration
Building was swaying to its fall.

"Quick, Waldron! Quick!" he shouted, in the shrill treble of senility,
and ran into the corridor that led to the north wing. Waldron, suddenly
sobered, followed; and from the offices, where the night-shift of clerks
were laboring (or had been, till the first explosion), came crowding
pale and frightened men. Not the fighting cast of Air Trust slaves,
these, but the anaemic chemists and experimenters and clerical workers,
scabs, to a man. Now, in the common sentiment of fear, they jostled
Flint and Waldron, as though these plutocrats had been but common clay.
And in the corridor a babel rose, through which fresh volleys and ever
more and more violent explosions ripped and thundered.

Flint struck savagely at some who barred his way; and Waldron elbowed
through, with curses.

"Get out of the way, you swine!" shrilled the old Billionaire. "Make
way, there! Way!"

The two men reached a door that led by a private passage, through to the
steel-and-concrete laboratories.

"Here, this way, Flint!" shouted Waldron. "If those Hell-devils drop a
bomb on us, this building will cave in like jackstraws! Our only safety
is here, _here_!"

Thoroughly cowed now, with all the brutal bluster and half-drunken
swagger gone, Waldron whipped out a bunch of keys, tremblingly unlocked
the door and blundered through. Flint followed. Behind them, others
tried to press, on toward the armored laboratories; but with vile
blasphemies the plutocrats beat them back and slammed the door.

"To Hell with _them_!" shouted Flint, perfectly ashen now and shaking
like a leaf, the fear of death strong on his withered soul. "We've got
all we can do to look after ourselves! Quick, Waldron, quick!"

Both men, sick with panic, with fear of the unknown terror from above,
stumbled rather than ran along the passage, and presently reached the
laboratory.