The blinding flashes swept the bridges, playing like ribands of silvery blue along the course of their discharge. Everywhere along the bridges swarmed the stampede of flight, checked where the Rays caught the fugitives and twisted them into charred lumps, sweeping away the superstructure also, and the bridge rails. I saw one bridge go down, as a deflected Ray wrenched it from its piers. It spewed its burden upon the stones below, and from among the dead, little figures leaped up and began to run for refuge toward the Council Wing; and there a blast from a Ray gun found them, and the heavy doors crumbled upon them, and wood and men were ground into the same pulpy blackness. The Ray had found the weak spots of the great buildings, and from the Temple top huge stones came crashing down, rebounding along the courts and splintering into fragments. Clouds of dust rose up like smoke from conflagrations.
The flowing tide of the Guard’s victory rolled on unchecked. Their shouts were frightful. They held the courts, now piled with debris from the buildings above them. I ran with Esther back toward the bridge, crossed it, and gained the shelter of the Airscouts’ Fortress. Before me was a flight of stone steps; I ran up, shouting. Nobody answered me. I gained the summit and found myself alone there.
Looking down from the roof I saw that the Guard were swarming in the Temple. They had regained that; they had driven our men from the Airscouts’ Fortress, on which I stood, trapped, since it was impossible to cross the courts. Where were our forces? I saw the locust cloud of attack break against the doors of the offices beneath the Council Hall. That was our last stronghold. The Ray flashes played on the walls, but they held fast.
Then out of the south a flock of giant birds came wheeling. They swooped toward us and resolved themselves into the airplane fleet. They dipped their luminous wings and circled around us, and a mazy pattern of light shot downward upon the ranks of the Guard.
The battleplanes had settled their differences, and three-fourths of them had returned to fight for us.
I saw the Guard race back for their sheltering walls. The Ray artillery shot upward to meet the challenge of the battleplanes. To and fro overhead wheeled the great shining birds in soundless duel. The conflict appeared the more frightful because of this silence. Only those at the guns knew what was happening.
But presently, as the flock wheeled, I saw one tower like a shot pheasant and then tumble. It plunged into the court and lay, a shapeless mass, upon the stones. The Ray gun had found its defenseless parts as it maneuvered. A second battleplane came hurtling down. It struck the Temple wall, seemed to cling there like a bat, and, fluttering like a dying thing, plunged to the stones beside its shattered mate.
The Guard was winning. The enclosing walls stood fast. Our last hope seemed to be gone. The sun was dipping into the west.
I dared not carry Esther through that fire-swept zone. It was my plan, should Sanson’s men reoccupy the Airscouts’ Fortress, to seek refuge within the little, half-secret room where Jones had hidden us. Meanwhile I waited on the roof, behind the glow-painted shield of a single empty airplane that was resting there. Twilight fell, and the soundless fight went on. The battleplanes were circling higher, and their fire was utterly ineffective. I judged, from its growing infrequency, that their solar batteries were becoming emptied. Meanwhile our men, pent in the council offices, waited for the finale.
Hourly our situation grew more desperate. Another battleplane went down. The game was in Sanson’s hands after all. Our only chance had been in the surprise, and the mad rush to the People’s House and the confusion in the Temple had spoiled all plans and allowed our enemy to concentrate his men. Where was he, I wondered.