y or more into Canada,
and back over the Falls again. A German caught fire, and the whole crowd
broke away from her flare and rose about her dispersing, leaving her to
drop towards Canada and blow up as she dropped. Then with renewed uproar
the others closed again. Once from the men in Niagara city came a sound
like an ant-hill cheering. Another German burnt, and one badly deflated
by the prow of an antagonist, flopped out of action southward.

It became more and more evident that the Germans were getting the
worst of the unequal fight. More and more obviously were they being
persecuted. Less and less did they seem to fight with any object other
than escape. The Asiatics swept by them and above them, ripped their
bladders, set them alight, picked off their dimly seen men in diving
clothes, who struggled against fire and tear with fire extinguishers and
silk ribbons in the inner netting. They answered only with ineffectual
shots. Thence the battle circled back over Niagara, and then suddenly
the Germans, as if at a preconcerted signal, broke and dispersed, going
east, west, north, and south, in open and confused flight. The Asiatics,
as they realised this, rose to fly above them and after them. Only
one little knot of four Germans and perhaps a dozen Asiatics remained
fighting about the Hohenzollern and the Prince as he circled in a last
attempt to save Niagara.

Round they swooped once again over the Canadian Fall, over the waste of
waters eastward, until they were distant and small, and then round and
back, hurrying, bounding, swooping towards the one gaping spectator.

The whole struggling mass approached very swiftly, growing rapidly
larger, and coming out black and featureless against the afternoon sun
and above the blinding welter of the Upper Rapids. It grew like a storm
cloud until once more it darkened the sky. The flat Asiatic airships
kept high above the Germans and behind them, and fired unanswered
bullets into their gas-chambers and upon their flanks--the one-man
flying-machines hovered and alighted like a swarm of attacking bees.
Nearer they came, and nearer, filling the lower heaven. Two of the
Germans swooped and rose again, but the Hohenzollern had suffered too
much for that. She lifted weakly, turned sharply as if to get out of
the battle, burst into flames fore and aft, swept down to the water,
splashed into it obliquely, and rolled over and over and came down
stream rolling and smashing and writhing