As the rabble closed on the a?ronef, she gave a huge heave, her bow swinging over her assailants like the tilted arm of a see-saw. Next, the stern cleared the turf and the colossus rose majestically, rolling the while like some ship riding at anchor. The gnats who clung to her bottom and gallery dropped off confusedly, and the whole multitude in her neighbourhood seemed bewildered with surprise and terror. Suddenly the Attila was enveloped in flame and smoke; the roar of her big pieces mingling with the cracks of the machine-guns and the rifle fire that spirted from the loop-holes in her armour. Lanes were cut in the crowd in all directions, and a veritable hail of bullets whistled past the spot where we stood, many even claiming their victims around us. Discretion, not valour, was our choice. We made wildly for the outlets toward which a screaming mob rushed 202behind us, and, once through them, made our way rapidly down the street. Having run some few hundred yards we stopped, and saw with dismay how narrow had been our escape. The Attila was still rising majestically with her machine and quick-firing guns playing on the multitude as a hose plays on flames. The wretched victims were fighting for the blocked gates and outlets like creatures possessed, bloody gaps opened and shut in their midst, and heaps of butchered and trampled bodies tripped up the frantic survivors in batches as they ran. The din was simply unearthly; the picture as a whole indescribable, not being set off by two or three easily detachable features, but so compositely appalling in its details as to baffle the deftest pen. It lingers still vividly in my memory. The cloudy pall above, the still smoking and ruined houses opposite the Park, the heaving crowd with its multitudinous detail of slaughter, suffocation, and writhings, the smoke-clad hull of the Attila, as it rose in angry majesty, its top peering like the Matterhorn through clouds—these were fraught with a fascination that held us enthralled. The sight would have moved the pity of a Borgia, and glutted to the full the morbid ?stheticism of a Nero.
203

THE ‘ATTILA’ ROSE MAJESTICALLY.

204But the massacre was as short as it was swift. When the a?ronef had reached the height of one 205hundred and fifty feet she suddenly ceased firing, and began once more to circle with albatross-like grace in the path she had previously favoured. What was the motive for this strange suspension of hostilities? Possibly her munitions were failing, and the thought of departure with his grim project unaccomplished had forced Hartmann to husband his resources and await some novel opportunities for mischief at night. His state of mind, however, must have been even at that moment unenviable. That he had yet received the fatal letter might, or might not, be the case. But quite apart from this thunderbolt, he had a gloomy prospect to brood over. The failure of his artillery and petroleum to effect the ruin he had contemplated was in itself—from his standpoint—a catastrophe, while the extirpation of the anarchist rising below rendered his very security dubious. Of the success or defeat of the Continental anarchists we had as yet heard nothing, owing to the disorganization of the usual channels of information, but, seeing that the attack in London had failed, it was highly probable that it had withered away utterly in places where there was no Attila to back it. In this event the situation of Hartmann would be precarious. Defiant of human effort as seemed the a?ronef, it was, nevertheless, to a large extent dependent on the maintenance of its 206communications with society—communications which had hitherto been kept up with the various Continental anarchist groups. Coals, provisions, gas, munitions of all sorts had to be allowed for. But in the débacle of modern anarchism and complete exposure of its secrets, things might come to such a pass that the Attila would be altogether without a basis, deprived of which her death from inanition was a mere question of time. Here was a fine opportunity for the Governments, an opportunity which could not well have escaped the acute vision of Hartmann. Ah, well, we should see.

At this stage my speculations were cut short by a rush of fugitives down the street, and, unable to breast the torrent, we took the wisest course and flowed with it. Some way further on, however, the panic began to ease down, then slowly died away, until many stopped outright to gaze on the destroyer which sailed so contemptuously above them. Some even found their way back to the Park, anxious to do what they could for the hundreds of wounded and dying wretches who littered the sward for an area of at least three hundred square yards, and whose cries would have shocked the denizens of Malebolge.

We were about to do the same when the road was summarily cleared by police, and all further access to 207the scene prohibited. We were protesting against this usage when a voice was heard—apparently from one of the rooms of one of the few uninjured houses opposite.

“Hi! here, is that you, Northerton? Come in, man come in.” I looked up and saw leaning from a window an elderly gentleman whom I recognized as a frequent visitor at Carshalton Terrace. We accepted forthwith this very seasonable invitation, and mounting the steps, were ushered into a cosy drawing-room where we found the whole family assembled.

The old gentleman, whose name was Wingate, could talk of nothing, of course, but the one absorbing subject, the Attila and her depredations. An attentive circle surrounded us as we recounted the story of the last shameful massacre.

“The ship, or whatever you call it, seems quiet again,” observed our host.

“A calm before a storm I am afraid; I dread to think what this night may have in store for us.”

“And I............