Heedless of the risk he ran, one of the British defenders of the Cavarale dashed across the heap of brickwork and recovered the blue and white flag. The bunting was torn, the staff severed, but the daring fellow waved the remains of the flag above his head.
"Come down, Jones; they've seen us!" ordered Dacres.
Two minutes later the "Meteor" passed immediately overhead and at an elevation of ten thousand feet. She made no attempt to descend.
"By Jove! I have it!" ejaculated Gerald Whittinghame. "She's going to settle with Fort Volador."
The garrison of the Valderian fort saw the danger. Their fire upon the Cavarale ceased. An attempt was made to train the quick-firers upon the airship, but the weapons were not on suitable mountings.
Panic seized the artillerymen. Abandoning the fort they fled pell-mell towards Naocuanha.
The "Meteor's" motors stopped. Rapidly she lost way, bringing up immediately above the doomed fort.
Through his binoculars Dacres observed a small black object drop from the airship. Sixty-five seconds later, having fallen vertically through a distance of nearly three thousand five hundred yards, the bomb struck the ground.
The aim was superb. Alighting fairly in the centre of the deserted fort it exploded. A burst of lurid flame was followed by a dense cloud of yellow smoke, mingled with fragments of earth, stones and bricks. The missile of destruction, powerful enough in itself to knock the defences of the fort out of action, had caused the main magazine to explode. When the smoke dispersed sufficiently for the observers on the ruins of the Cavarale to see what had taken place, Fort Volador was no more.
Apparently content with this act of vengeance the "Meteor," gliding vertically downwards, flew slowly over the four-square mass of rubble that marked the position of the state prison of the Republic of Valderia.