a of using it, and had forgotten that it was fixed to the plane,
but the old man seemed temporarily to have lost his wits.

Rushing flames surrounded the burning airships, reducing them to a
solid, welded mass of incandescent metal. Dick looked down, waiting
for the next jerk that would summon him to join his men. At the moment
he was not conscious of either fear or horror, only intense rage
against the murderers and regret that he could never bring back the
news of victory.

* * * * *

The cloud had almost dissipated. In place of the phosphorescence,
electric lights had appeared, making the ground beneath perfectly
visible. Dick could see a number of men grouped together at the
entrance to a large building, part of which had been wrecked by a
bomb, though there were no evidences of fire. Other structures had
been dismantled and knocked about, but what remained of them had not
been charred by fire. Evidently they had been fireproofed. Perhaps the
gas itself was incombustible. Only in the middle of the tarmac, where
the remnants of the airplanes blazed, was there any sign of fire.

There were three machines resembling dynamos, placed one at each
corner of the tarmac, equidistant from the central holocaust. A
half-dozen men were grouped about each of them, and by the light from
the huge reflector over each Dick saw that they were whirring busily.
At the time it did not occur to him that these were the machines that
were sending out the electrical force that had held the airplanes
powerless.

But as he looked, his mind still a turmoil of hate and hopeless anger,
he saw one of the three machines cease whirring. The group about it
dispersed, the light above went out. And now his plane, as if drawn by
the power of the two remaining machines, began to move jerkily again,
not down toward the burning wreckage, but sidewise, away from it.

Straight out toward the side of the tarmac it moved jerked downward
diagonally, until it rested only a few feet above the ground.

Then suddenly Dick felt the plane quiver, as if released from the
power of the force that had held it. It nosed down and crashed, rolled
over amid the wreckage of a shattered wing. The concussion shot Dick
from the cockpit clear of the smashed machine.

He landed upon his head, and went out instantly.

CHAPTER IX

_The Invisible Emperor_

It was the sound of his name, spoken repeatedly, that brought Dick
back to conscio