arted upon the next one even
before a terrific explosion in their rear told that the car of the
first one had struck the earth.

So she sped along the whole line, darting hither and thither in
obedience to the guiding hand that controlled her, with such
inconceivable rapidity that before any of the unwieldy machines,
saving only those whose occupants had been prepared for the assault,
had time to get out of the way of the destroying ram, she had rent
her way through the gas-holders of twenty-eight out of the forty
balloons, and flung them to the earth to explode and spread
consternation and destruction all along the van of the army encamped
below.

From beginning to end the attack had not lasted ten minutes. When the
last of the aerostats had gone down under his terrible ram, Arnold
signalled "Stop, and ascend," to the engine-room. A second signal
turned on the searchlight in the bow, and from this a rapid series of
flashes were sent up to the sky to the northward and eastward.

[Illustration: "Her ram had passed completely through the gasholder."

_See page 334._]

The effect was as fearful as it was instantaneous. The twelve
war-balloons which had escaped by flying the red flag took up their
positions above the Russian lines, and began to drop their fire-shell
and cyanogen bombs upon the masses of men below. The air-ship,
swerving round again to the westward, with her fan-wheels aloft,
moved slowly across the wide area over which men and horses were
wildly rushing hither and thither in vain attempts to escape the rain
of death that was falling upon them from the sky.

Her searchlight, turned downwards to the earth, sought out the spots
where they were crowded most thickly together, and then the
air-ship's guns came into play also. Arnold had given orders to use
the new fire-shell exclusively, and its effects proved to be
frightful beyond description. Wherever one fell a blaze of intense
light shone for an instant upon the earth. Then this burst into a
thousand fragments, which leapt into the air and spread themselves
far and wide in all directions, burning with inextinguishable fury
for several minutes, and driving men and horses mad with agony and
terror.

No human fortitude or discipline could withstand the fearful rain of
fire, in comparison with which even the deadly hail from the
aerostats seemed insignificant. For half an hour the eight guns of
the _Ithuriel_ hurled these awful projectiles in all direc