Behind us, I was dimly aware of all our great line of air-cities grappling with the line rushing opposite; Chicago, a little farther back in our line from ourselves, was carrying on as terrific a duel with London. Constantinople in the enemy's line was whirling downward beneath the batteries of Denver and Valparaiso. Montreal, in our own, was falling in fusing death as it became the target for all the giant batteries of the colossal city of Berlin. City after city in the two racing, struggling lines was falling to annihilation as the awful battle raged on. High above the colossal lines of racing cities, our own great fleet of cruisers and the enemy's were whirling in a wild fury, insane as our own giant battle of cities. Surely Armageddon had come upon the earth at last! Although the European and Asiatic cities still outnumbered us, we had cut down their great margin of superiority in that attack which our line had made upon their confused circle. Now, with equal fury, they were striking from line to line. Straight ahead of our two racing lines, there loomed now a great bank of drifting vapors, great cloud-masses drifting south from the lakes to the north. Neither of our two battling lines desired to enter those vapor-masses, and so as one, when we neared them, both lines shot downward. Surrounded Again Down--down--with our batteries thundering still across the gulf toward Peking, whose own guns answered with as great a fury, though in their city as in ours, battery after battery was being silenced! Down--down--until the green earth beneath, lit by the descending afternoon sun, seemed just beneath us, rushing up toward us with awful speed as we shot down to it! Yet in that dread moment neither line of struggling cities straightened upward, each fearful of the other's gaining an advantage. In an instant more, it seemed, New York must crash together headlong into the earth. Downward we shot, and I saw the green plain looming awful beneath us. At the last moment I jerked back another of the direction-levers before me; and as, in answer to the controls, New York tipped sharply upward once more. I saw Peking opposite rushing up at the same instant, saving itself as we had done. Behind us the cities that directly followed in our two lines were curving up as swiftly, all their guns thundering still as furiously. But, farther back in the two lines, there were cities that had swooped too low to recover, had dipped lower and in the next moment had crashed and been annihilated upon the green earth, as they collided with it at their terrific speed!