his former
prison. And coming quickly across this opened room and up to the very
verge of the cliff of the ruins came a little white clad figure followed
by two other smaller seeming figures in black and yellow. He heard the
man beside him exclaim "Ostrog," and turned to ask a question. But he
never did, because of the startled exclamation of another of those who
were with him and a lank finger suddenly pointing. He looked, and behold!
the monoplane that had been rising from the flying stage when last he had
looked in that direction, was driving towards them. The swift steady
flight was still novel enough to hold his attention.

Nearer it came, growing rapidly larger and larger, until it had swept
over the further edge of the ruins and into view of the dense multitudes
below. It drooped across the space and rose and passed overhead, rising
to clear the mass of the Council House, a filmy translucent shape with
the solitary aeronaut peering down through its ribs. It vanished beyond
the skyline of the ruins.

Graham transferred his attention to Ostrog. He was signalling with his
hands, and his attendants were busy breaking down the wall beside him. In
another moment the monoplane came into view again, a little thing far
away, coming round in a wide curve and going slower.

Then suddenly the man in yellow shouted: "What are they doing? What are
the people doing? Why is Ostrog left there? Why is he not captured? They
will lift him--the monoplane will lift him! Ah!"

The exclamation was echoed by a shout from the ruins. The rattling sound
of the green weapons drifted across the intervening gulf to Graham, and,
looking down, he saw a number of black and yellow uniforms running along
one of the galleries that lay open to the air below the promontory upon
which Ostrog stood. They fired as they ran at men unseen, and then
emerged a number of pale blue figures in pursuit. These minute fighting
figures had the oddest effect; they seemed as they ran like little model
soldiers in a toy. This queer appearance of a house cut open gave that
struggle amidst furniture and passages a quality of unreality. It was
perhaps two hundred yards away from him, and very nearly fifty above the
heads in the ruins below. The black and yellow men ran into an open
archway, and turned and fired a volley. One of the blue pursuers striding
forward close to the edge, flung up his arms, staggered sideways, seemed
to Graham's sense to hang over the edge f