He saw my frenzied gesture westward, caught the meaning of my wild warning shout as the guns beneath swung toward him and the cruisers below rushed up, and I saw him hang there for a fraction of a moment irresolute, hesitating. Then the next moment, just as there came a swift-spreading thunder of detonations from the great heat-guns around the plaza he had whirled the wheel over and sent the great cruiser rushing away from the tower, sent it rushing westward through the dusk above the great air-city's gathered lights. In the next instant there shot through the air where it had been the shining heat-shells from beneath! And then as Macklin's cruiser rushed comet-like onward through the dusk the great heat-guns beneath were turning again toward it. I cried out hoarsely as they thundered again, but with a whirl sidewise Macklin and Connell had evaded the rushing shells and were hurtling on. Now over all the great air-city, over all the mighty mass of Berlin was spreading a roar of alarm, and now the cruisers that had rushed up in pursuit were rocketing westward after that single fleeing one, the batteries beneath us holding their fire lest they strike their own pursuing ships. With our hearts pounding Hilliard and I saw that single little cruiser leap on, saw it shooting through the dusk until its gleaming shape was now far away from the great air-city, racing westward! Swiftly, though, the numberless pursuing cruisers were converging upon it, and then, as we strained our eyes to see the flying gleaming craft, there came a greater thundering of guns as all the suddenly-alarmed batteries at the air-city's westward edge loosed their shells upon the fleeing cruiser! That cruiser seemed to halt for a moment unaccountably, there was a great blinding flare that could be made only by heat-shells striking, and then the cruiser, the cruiser that held Macklin and Connell and all the American Federation's fate, was reeling blindly downward and out of sight, whirling lifelessly downward toward the earth far below! CHAPTER VII The Great Movement Starts Stunned and stupefied, Hilliard and I gazed out in that moment from our window, out through the dusk above the air-city to where the cruiser of our two friends had plunged to death. I think now that for those first few moments neither of us was able completely to comprehend what had happened, to comprehend what malign fate it was that had sent our friends down to death there as they seemed making their escape. Staring forth blankly, we saw the cruisers that had been pursuing them, that had been overtaking them, turning back now toward the air-city, heard a cheer rolling across that city as the crowds in its streets witnessed the destruction of the fleeing craft, the flare of the shells that had destroyed it. That great roaring cheer from beneath penetrated at last into my brain with realization of what had happened.