Between eight and a dozen bombs fell in a length of five blocks, and at a distance of from one to three hundred yards from my window, the echoes of one explosion mingling with the burst of the next. Broken glass tinkled down to the left and right, and a fragment of slate from the roof shattered upon my balcony. But the most remarkable phenomenon was the rush of air from, or rather to, the explosion. With each detonation I leaned forward instinctively and braced myself for a blow on the chest, and lo--it descended upon my back. The same mysterious force burst inward my half-latched door, and all down one side of the square curtains were streaming outward from open or broken windows. (I did not sit down and ponder the question at the moment, but the phenomenon is readily explained by the fact that, because the force of the explosives used in Zeppelin bombs is invariably exerted upwards, the air from the lower level is drawn in to fill the vacuum thus created. This also accounts for the fact that all of the window glass shattered by the raiders has fallen on the sidewalks instead of inside the rooms.) Tremendous as was the spectacle of the long line of fires extending out of eyescope to the City and beyond, there is no denying that the dominating feature of the climax of the raid was the Zeppelins themselves. Emboldened perhaps, by the absence of gun-fire, these had slowed down for their parting salvo so as to be almost “hovering” when the bombs were dropped opposite my vantage point. Brilliantly illuminated by the searchlights, whose beams wove about below them like the ribbons in a Maypole dance, the clean lines of their gaunt frameworks stood out like bas-reliefs in yellow wax. Every now and then one of them would lurch violently upward,--probably at the release of a heavy bomb,--but, controlled by rudders and planes, the movement had much of the easy power of the dart of a great fish. Indeed, there was strong suggestion of something strangely familiar in the lithe grace of those sleek yellow bodies, in the swift swayings and rightings, in the powerful guiding movements of those hinged “tails,” and all at once the picture of a gaunt “man-eater” nosing his terribly purposeful way below the keel of a South-Sea pearler flashed to my mind, and the words “Sharks! Sharks of the air!” leaped to my lips.