A cry of alarm came from the lips of Inga as she gazed upward and saw that gigantic, ominous-appearing object loom dim and vast in the darkness above them.
She went to Dirk and threw her arms around him, as if she were clinging to him for protection.
“Don’t leave me, Dirk,” she whispered. “I can just feel that something terrible is going to happen, and I want you with me!”
“I’ll stay with you, of course,” whispered Dirk. Something of that feeling of dread and apprehension which so fully possessed his two companions entered into his mind. “Don’t tremble so, Inga,” he pleaded. “It is a strange thing, but we will know more about it in the morning. Be calm until then, my dear, if you can.”
He looked over the shoulder of the girl, whose face was buried against his breast, and he saw a hundred great red and green shafts of light shooting up into the air. Fleeting shadows seemed to pass swiftly up and down them, and he knew that thousands of planes were abroad, some of them seeking the heights and others dropping down.
The great towers of Long Island were all aglow, and it was apparent that few people were sleeping that night. The scarlet sky over Manhattan indicated that the center of the metropolis, too, was alive to the menace of the weird visitant that now was so plainly visible.
All night long they remained on the terrace. Dirk and Inga seated close together and Stanton, at a distance, brooding alone over the disaster which he felt was impending.
The illuminated dial of the great clock that was a part of the beacon-tower on the Metropole Landing Field told of the slow passing of the hours.
All night long they listened to the reports that came through the radiovisor and watched that immobile, threatening monster of metal.