black smoke clouds and red tongues of flame, it vanished
at last under a mountain of black that heaped itself in turbulent
piles and whirling masses until the winds swept the smoke out over the
sea.

And high above it all--so high that all clouds were below it--there
hung in a lucent sky one tiny, silvery speck. There was a delicate
steering sight on Danny's ship; he could direct the red craft as if it
were in very fact a projectile that could be controlled in flight. And
under the cross hairs of that sight swung a silvery speck, while the
man who looked along the telescopic tube cursed steadily and
methodically as if in some way his hate might span the gap and reach
that distant foe.

And then the speck vanished. Danny followed it with the powerful
glasses of his sighting tube; he saw it swing inland--saw it move like
a line of silvery light, almost, swifter in its motion than his
instrument could follow. But even in that swift flight Danny's eyes
observed one fact: the enemy ship was coming down; it slanted in on
that long volplane that must have ripped the air apart like a bolt of
lightning. And Danny's red rocket swept out and around in a long,
looping flight, while he laid the ship on the course that other had
followed.

"That's one of them," he said savagely; "there must be two more. But
I'll get this one if I have to crash him in air and smash my own ship
right through him."

* * * * *

The mind of Danny O'Rourke was filled with only one idea; he had
sighted his prey--the ship in which sat a man-thing who had sent a
terrible death to Danny's fellows. And, though his hands moved
carefully and methodically, though externally he was cool and
collected, within him was a seething maelstrom of hate. All he saw was
that giant figure as he had seen it before; all he knew was that he
must overtake that speeding ship and send it to earth.

He had even forgotten Morgan; perhaps he was never fully conscious of
his coming from the moment when that other trembling, shaken man had
shouted: "New York! New York's gone!"

"There aren't two more," the Infant was saying from his seat at the
rear of the cabin: "there's just one. Those three lines were always
parallel except when they widened out: that meant that he had gone up
higher. If we ever see that ship, we'll see three discharge tubes for
the ray."

Danny O'Rourke turned his eyes that had gone haggard and deep-sunk
with the sights the