tly the clouds
swallowed her again for a time, and then she came back to sight as a
dark and whale-like monster, amidst streaming weather. The air was full
of flappings and pipings, of void, gusty shouts and noises; it buffeted
him and confused him; ever and again his attention became rigid--a blind
and deaf balancing and clutching.

"Wow!"

Something fell past him out of the vast darknesses above and vanished
into the tumults below, going obliquely downward. It was a German
drachenflieger. The thing was going so fast he had but an instant
apprehension of the dark figure of the aeronaut crouched together
clutching at his wheel. It might be a manoeuvre, but it looked like a
catastrophe.

"Gaw!" said Bert.

"Pup-pup-pup" went a gun somewhere in the mirk ahead and suddenly and
quite horribly the Vaterland lurched, and Bert and the sentinel were
clinging to the rail for dear life. "Bang!" came a vast impact out of
the zenith, followed by another huge roll, and all about him the tumbled
clouds flashed red and lurid in response to flashes unseen, revealing
immense gulfs. The rail went right overhead, and he was hanging loose in
the air holding on to it.

For a time Bert's whole mind and being was given to clutching. "I'm
going into the cabin," he said, as the airship righted again and brought
back the gallery floor to his feet. He began to make his way cautiously
towards the ladder. "Whee-wow!" he cried as the whole gallery reared
itself up forward, and then plunged down like a desperate horse.

Crack! Bang! Bang! Bang! And then hard upon this little rattle of shots
and bombs came, all about him, enveloping him, engulfing him,
immense and overwhelming, a quivering white blaze of lightning and a
thunder-clap that was like the bursting of a world.

Just for the instant before that explosion the universe seemed to be
standing still in a shadowless glare.

It was then he saw the American aeroplane. He saw it in the light of the
flash as a thing altogether motionless. Even its screw appeared still,
and its men were rigid dolls. (For it was so near he could see the men
upon it quite distinctly.) Its stern was tilting down, and the whole
machine was heeling over. It was of the Colt-Coburn-Langley pattern,
with double up-tilted wings and the screw ahead, and the men were in
a boat-like body netted over. From this very light long body, magazine
guns projected on either side. One thing that was strikingly odd and
wonderful i