passed slowly between Bert and the
sunlight, and became black outlines of themselves. The drachenflieger
appeared as little flecks of black on either wing of this aerial Armada.

The two fleets seemed in no hurry to engage. The Asiatics went far away
into the east, quickening their pace and rising as they did so, and then
tailed out into a long column and came flying back, rising towards the
German left. The squadrons of the latter came about, facing this oblique
advance, and suddenly little flickerings and a faint crepitating sound
told that they had opened fire. For a time no effect was visible to
the watcher on the bridge. Then, like a handful of snowflakes, the
drachenflieger swooped to the attack, and a multitude of red specks
whirled up to meet them. It was to Bert's sense not only enormously
remote but singularly inhuman. Not four hours since he had been on one
of those very airships, and yet they seemed to him now not gas-bags
carrying men, but strange sentient creatures that moved about and did
things with a purpose of their own. The flight of the Asiatic and German
flying-machines joined and dropped earthward, became like a handful
of white and red rose petals flung from a distant window, grew larger,
until Bert could see the overturned ones spinning through the air,
and were hidden by great volumes of dark smoke that were rising in the
direction of Buffalo. For a time they all were hidden, then two or three
white and a number of red ones rose again into the sky, like a swarm of
big butterflies, and circled fighting and drove away out of sight again
towards the east.

A heavy report recalled Bert's eyes to the zenith, and behold, the great
crescent had lost its dressing and burst into a disorderly long cloud of
airships! One had dropped halfway down the sky. It was flaming fore and
aft, and even as Bert looked it turned over and fell, spinning over and
over itself and vanished into the smoke of Buffalo.

Bert's mouth opened and shut, and he clutched tighter on the rail of
the bridge. For some moments--they seemed long moments--the two fleets
remained without any further change flying obliquely towards each other,
and making what came to Bert's ears as a midget uproar. Then suddenly
from either side airships began dropping out of alignment, smitten by
missiles he could neither see nor trace. The string of Asiatic ships
swung round and either charged into or over (it was difficult to say
from below) the shatt