chasm, and down this something, a slender edge, fell swiftly and
vanished, as a sixpence falls down a crack.

At first he did not understand, and then a wild joy possessed him. He
shouted at the top of his voice, an inarticulate shout, and drove higher
and higher up the sky. Throb, throb, throb, pause, throb, throb, throb.
"Where was the other?" he thought. "They too--." As he looked round the
empty heavens he had a momentary fear that this second machine had risen
above him, and then he saw it alighting on the Norwood stage. They had
meant shooting. To risk being rammed headlong two thousand feet in the
air was beyond their latter-day courage....

For a little while he circled, then swooped in a steep descent towards
the westward stage. Throb throb throb, throb throb throb. The twilight
was creeping on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had been
so dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves of
the moving ways and the translucent roofs and domes and the chasms
between the buildings were glowing softly now, lit by the tempered
radiance of the electric light that the glare of the day overpowered. The
three efficient stages that the Ostrogites held--for Wimbledon Park was
useless because of the fire from Roehampton, and Streatham was a
furnace--were glowing with guide lights for the coming aeroplanes. As he
swept over the Roehampton stage he saw the dark masses of the people
thereon. He heard a clap of frantic cheering, heard a bullet from the
Wimbledon Park stage tweet through the air, and went beating up above the
Surrey wastes. He felt a breath of wind from the southwest, and lifted
his westward wing as he had learnt to do, and so drove upward heeling
into the rare swift upper air. Whirr, whirr, whirr.

Up he drove and up, to that pulsating rhythm, until the country beneath
was blue and indistinct, and London spread like a little map traced in
light, like the mere model of a city near the brim of the horizon. The
southwest was a sky of sapphire over the shadowy rim of the world, and
ever as he drove upward the multitude of stars increased.

And behold! In the southward, low down and glittering swiftly nearer,
were two little patches of nebulous light. And then two more, and then a
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,