his teeth biting his lips. He was firmly strapped…

When he could look down again it was like looking down upon the

crater of a small volcano. In the open garden before the

Imperial castle a shuddering star of evil splendour spurted and

poured up smoke and flame towards them like an accusation. They

were too high to distinguish people clearly, or mark the bomb's

effect upon the building until suddenly the facade tottered and

crumbled before the flare as sugar dissolves in water. The man

stared for a moment, showed all his long teeth, and then

staggered into the cramped standing position his straps

permitted, hoisted out and bit another bomb, and sent it down

after its fellow.

The explosion came this time more directly underneath the

aeroplane and shot it upward edgeways. The bomb box tipped to

the point of disgorgement, and the bomb-thrower was pitched

forward upon the third bomb with his face close to its celluloid

stud. He clutched its handles, and with a sudden gust of

determination that the thing should not escape him, bit its stud.

Before he could hurl it over, the monoplane was slipping

sideways. Everything was falling sideways. Instinctively he gave

himself up to gripping, his body holding the bomb in its place.

Then that bomb had exploded also, and steersman, thrower, and

aeroplane were just flying rags and splinters of metal and drops

of moisture in the air, and a third column of fire rushed eddying

down upon the doomed buildings below…

Section 4

Never before in the history of warfare had there been a

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