“We have driven them out of the under galleries at Norwood, Streatham is afire and burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours. Ours!—and we have taken the aeropile that lay thereon.”
For an instant Graham and Helen stood in silence, their hearts were beating fast, they looked at one another. For one last moment there gleamed in Graham his dream of empire, of kingship, with Helen by his side. It gleamed, and passed.
A shrill bell rang. An agitated grey-headed man appeared from the room of the Ward Leaders. “It is all over,” he cried.
“What matters it now that we have Roehampton? The aeroplanes have been sighted at Boulogne!”
“The Channel!” said the man in yellow. He calculated swiftly. “Half an hour.”
“They still have three of the flying stages,” said the old man.
“Those guns?” cried Graham.
“We cannot mount them—in half an hour.”
“Do you mean they are found?”
“Too late,” said the old man.