at nine o'clock in the morning, Stanton," Dirk
said abruptly. "I told Sears I would notify you."

"I thought that we would be called together very soon," said Stanton.
"It's concerning that damn thing up there."

"Perhaps," agreed Dirk carelessly. "Well," he added, "I believe that I
will hop home and get some sleep."

"Sleep!" exclaimed Stanton. "Sleep? On a night like this?"

"Oh, Dirk," pleaded Inga, "stay here with me, won't you? I am not going
to bed because I just know that I wouldn't be able to close my eyes."

"Let him go, Inga, if he wants to sleep," urged Stanton. "I will stay
here and keep watch with you."

"--and if order is not restored in the streets of Manhattan within the
course of a short time, the authorities will resort to morphite gas to
quell the turbulence and rioting--"

"The streets must be frightfully congested," said Inga. "It is the first
occasion in a long time that the police have had to threaten the use of
morphite."

"--we do not want to alarm people unnecessarily but we have to report,"
came the hurried voice of the broadcaster, "that the monstrous mass that
has been hanging above the city just made a sudden drop of five thousand
feet and again came to a stop. It is now a little more than six miles
over Manhattan and--again it has dropped. This time it fell like a
plummet for twelve thousand feet. It is now about twenty thousand feet,
some four miles, above Manhattan and--"

* * * * *

A cry of alarm came from the lips of Inga as she gazed upward and saw
that gigantic, ominous-appearing object loom dim and vast in the
darkness above them.

She went to Dirk and threw her arms around him, as if she were clinging
to him for protection.

"Don't leave me, Dirk," she whispered. "I can just feel that something
terrible is going to happen, and I want you with me!"

"I'll stay with you, of course," whispered Dirk. Something of that
feeling of dread and apprehension which so fully possessed his two
companions entered into his mind. "Don't tremble so, Inga," he pleaded.
"It is a strange thing, but we will know more about it in the morning.
Be calm until then, my dear, if you can."

He looked over the shoulder of the girl, whose face was buried against
his breast, and he saw a hundred great red and green shafts of light
shooting up into the air. Fleeting shadows seemed to pass swiftly up and
down them, and he knew that thousands of planes were abroad, s