ntrance shrilled its
warning. The danger lights blazed out. The city came to life. Lights
sprang up everywhere. People--with the daze of sleep still upon
them--appeared at the casements; on the roof-tops; on the canal steps
they appeared, fumbling with their boats. Panic!

A pandemonium. Aircraft, such as could so hastily be mustered, swept
overhead. A glare of lights everywhere. The shrill voice of the siren
stilled, to make audible the broadcast warnings--stentorian tones
screaming: "The Black Cloud of Death! Escape from the city! Escape to
Industriana!"

Warning, advice, command! But over it all, the breath of the black cloud
now lay heavy. The lights were dimmed by it. Everywhere--to every
deepest recess of the city--to every inner room where to escape it many
had fled--its deadly choking breath was penetrating.

Within the palace was turmoil. We had an air-vehicle on a landing-stage
nearby; but Georg and Maida would not leave at once. Rulers of the
Central State, as a Director might stick to his crumbling Tower, they
stayed now in the Great City. Encouraging the people. Maida's voice,
futilely attempting to broadcast over the uproar. Georg commanding the
official air-vessels to load with refugees; himself struggling to direct
the jam of boats toward the embarking stages.

We were in the instrument room of the palace. The air was pale-blue,
though I had closed every casement. Ourselves, choking already; then
gasping; and with no time or thought to procure a mask. The chemical
room, from whence we might have secured apparatus to purify our air, had
been abandoned before we thought to seek it out. I dashed into it, my
breath held. Its casements were open; its air thick-blue with the fumes;
its staff long since fled. I ran back to Georg and Maida, gasping, my
lungs on fire, my head roaring.

"No use! Abandoned!"

The department of weather control where--had we been forewarned--we
might have found means to divert the wind by another of our own
creation--was deserted by its staff at the first alarm.

"No use! Georg--Maida--let us go!"

The mirrors all about us in the instrument room were going dark; the
horrible scenes of death throughout the city which they pictured were
vanishing. The public lights were going out; the broadcast voices were
ceasing.

The city now was out of control. But still the lagoon outside was
packed with boats--overloaded boats.... Screams of terror, choked into
silence ... boats with