Their own ship was still at the twelve-thousand-foot level. Ahead, and five thousand feet below, tiny lights, red and white and green, lights whose swift motion made their hundreds seem like thousands instead, were weaving intricate patterns in the night. The flying lights of the fighting planes were on for the planes' own protection; and, too, no further concealment was possible in the glare that shone upward from below. Settling downward were balls of blinding fire, flares dropped by the squadron of scout planes that had torn through in advance. They lighted brilliantly a valley which, a few hours before, had been one of many like it--square fields, dark green with the foliage of fruit trees, straight lines of crossing roads, houses, and off in the distance a little city. And now the valley was an inferno of spouting flame. That city was a vast, roaring furnace under smoke clouds of mingled blood-red and black. The valley floor was a place of desolation, of drifting smoke and of flashing shell-bursts as the fleet swept in above. The myriad lights of the planes had drawn into a circle, a great whirlpool of lines that revolved above a mile-wide section of that valley. Beside Smithy a wheel control was moving. He clung to the pilot's seat as their own plane banked and nosed downward. And now he shouted aloud to Culver: "The mole-men! There they are! Thousands of them!" * * * * * He was pointing between the two pilots as their own plane swept down. He could see them plainly now, clotted masses of dark figures surging frenziedly to and fro. For an instant he saw them--then that part of the world where they had been was a seething inferno of bursting bombs and shells. Beside him Colonel Culver spoke quietly: "Caught them cold! That's handing it to them." Their own plane had leveled off. With motors throttled they were drifting slowly past, only a thousand feet higher than the circling planes just off at one side. Culver's quiet tones rose to a hoarse shout: "The ships! My God, they're falling!" His wild cry ended in a gasp. Beside him Smithy, in breathless horror, like Culver, was staring at that whirlpool of tiny lights that had gone suddenly from smooth circular motion into frenzied confusion, or vanished in the yellow glare of exploding gas tanks. The light of their own white flares picked them out in ghastly clarity as they fell. Straight, vertical lines of yellow were burning planes. Again they made horrible zigzag darts and flashed down into view torn and helpless, while others, tens and scores of others with crumpled wings, joined the mad dance of death.