Olga Romanoff . charmed circle ofthe mountains. But no sooner did one of tliem sweep up atfull speed out of the distance and slow down sufliciently totrain her guns than the atmosphere about her was convulsedwith a mighty shock and changed instantly into a mist offire, and when this vanished she had vanished too, shatteredto fragments which dropped in a rain of molten metalthousands of feet to the earth below. Morning came, the flaming arch of the Fire-Cloud sanklower and lower in the heavens until it stretched a broadband .of lurid light round the western horizon, and anunclouded sun brought
Olga Romanoff . charmed circle ofthe mountains. But no sooner did one of tliem sweep up atfull speed out of the distance and slow down sufliciently totrain her guns than the atmosphere about her was convulsedwith a mighty shock and changed instantly into a mist offire, and when this vanished she had vanished too, shatteredto fragments which dropped in a rain of molten metalthousands of feet to the earth below. Morning came, the flaming arch of the Fire-Cloud sanklower and lower in the heavens until it stretched a broadband .of lurid light round the western horizon, and anunclouded sun brought the last dawn but one that theterror-maddened myriads of earth would ever see. Still thefight went on at long ranges ; still ship after ship of thehostile fleet made its desperate effort to cross the invisiblebarrier which was drawn all round Aeria by the range of itsprotecting guns, only to be overturned and hurled to theearth by the shock of an exploding projectile or to be fairlystruck and dissolved to The Last Battle 355 No matter liow high they attempted to soar, the Almaand the Isma were still above them, and if the shells fromthe land batteries failed to do their work the guns of theair-ships did it for them and the result was the same—annihilation. The night of the 22nd was spent in incessant attack anddefence. The crews of the Aerian ships, grown desperate intheir supreme despair, now left the mountains and salliedforth into the open, engaging the enemy ship for ship andgun for gun in a last determined effort to destroy them, orbe destroyed, and far out from the still untouched battle-ments of Aeria the fight raged fast and furious. There now was no thought of safety in the hearts of theAerians. They had come forth to kill and be killed. Therules of aerial tactics were utterly neglected. They laidtheir guns alongside and, rushing through the air at theirutmost speed, they hurled themselves with the ram uponevery Moslem or Eussian vessel that they could meet or
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidolgaro, booksubjectutopias
