thick glass wind-screen that protected him. The
aeroplane slowed and dropped to foil his stroke, and dropped too low.
Just in time he saw the wind-wheels of Bromley hill rushing up towards
him, and spun about and up as the aeroplane he had chased crashed among
them. All its voices wove into a felt of yelling. The great fabric
seemed to be standing on end for a second among the heeling and
splintering vans, and then it flew to pieces. Huge splinters came flying
through the air, its engines burst like shells. A hot rush of flame shot
overhead into the darkling sky.

"_Two!_" he cried, with a bomb from overhead bursting as it fell, and
forthwith he was beating up again. A glorious exhilaration possessed
him now, a giant activity. His troubles about humanity, about his
inadequacy, were gone for ever. He was a man in battle rejoicing in his
power. Aeroplanes seemed radiating from him in every direction, intent
only upon avoiding him, the yelling of their packed passengers came in
short gusts as they swept by. He chose his third quarry, struck hastily
and did but turn it on edge. It escaped him, to smash against the tall
cliff of London wall. Flying from that impact he skimmed the darkling
ground so nearly he could see a frightened rabbit bolting up a slope. He
jerked up steeply, and found himself driving over south London with the
air about him vacant. To the right of him a wild riot of signal rockets
from the Ostrogites banged tumultuously in the sky. To the south the
wreckage of half a dozen air ships flamed, and east and west and north
the air ships fled before him. They drove away to the east and north,
and went about in the south, for they could not pause in the air.
In their present confusion any attempt at evolution would have meant
disastrous collisions. He could scarcely realize the thing he had done.
In every quarter aeroplanes were receding. They were receding. They
dwindled smaller and smaller. They were in flight!

He passed two hundred feet or so above the Roehampton stage. It was
black with people and noisy with their frantic shouting. But why was
the Wimbledon Park stage black and cheering, too? The smoke and flame of
Streatham now hid the three further stages. He curved about and rose
to see them and the northern quarters. First came the square masses of
Shooter's Hill into sight from behind the smoke, lit and orderly with
the aeroplane that had landed and its disembarking negroes. Then came
Blackheath, an