But the moment they appeared on the under-side of the cloud-sea, all the guns of the land batteries opened fire in all directions with time-shells, and so rapid were the discharges, and so terrible the energy of the explosives, that the whole firmament above the island seemed ablaze with them, while the concussions of the nether atmosphere were so tremendous and continuous, that it would have been madness for the Russian air-ships to have approached within the zone of fire with which the Aerians had covered and encircled their positions. The clouds were torn and broken up into vast whirling masses, which completely obscured the view of the Russians, and rendered anything like accurate shooting in the direction of the island impossible. Worse than this, the range of the great land guns, fired at an elevation of forty-five degrees, was so enormous that they were forced by the incessantly exploding projectiles, which were hurled up into the air in all directions, to retire to a distance which, beyond the most random shooting, the results of which were spent upon the rocks of the island and the sea, rendered their own guns useless. Rise up through the clouds they dare not, for they knew the _Ariel_ was still there, and that the first ship that showed herself would be an almost helpless mark for one of the ten guns which, for the time being, commanded the heavens. There seemed nothing for it but an ignominious retreat, for, as Boris Lossenski said to Olga when, furious with rage and mortification, she reproached him with a lack both of skill and courage, an attack upon a volcano in full eruption would have been child’s play to an assault at close quarters on Kerguelen Island. Their one hope of success had lain in a surprise, and that, by some unaccountable means, had been made impossible. They had reckoned only on the air-ships and the submarine defences, and even these they had expected to take unawares. The terrible power of the battery guns, which were able to spread their seas of fire through the air and to shake the very firmament itself with their projectiles, had been a revelation to them. They could not train their own guns without seeing their mark, and neither flame nor smoke betrayed the position of the batteries, while on the other hand the artillerists on the island had simply to surround the station with a zone of fire and a continuous series of atmospheric convulsions through which no air-ship could have passed without the risk of overturning or completely collapsing. So Olga was at last convinced that her choice lay between abandonment of the attack or running the gauntlet of fire in the almost forlorn hope of engaging the land batteries and an aerial fleet of unknown strength at close quarters.