Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/156

144 cannon blaze in the skies, while the air was shaken by deafening reports. Many disabled ships, with their antigravitation apparatus broken, sank lower and lower, until they, with their helpless crew and magazine of explosives, fell crashing down into the atmosphere of Neptune, and blew up with an explosion that desolated the ground for a mile around. Dismounted guns, pieces of metal wrenched off battleships, and wandering projectiles fell down on to the planet like thunderbolts, crashing through the trees and houses as if they had been made of paper.

Occasionally the Sirian war-ships hovered over Neptune, quite out of sight during the daytime, and then, under cover of the night, they were let down close to a river or lake, and fresh supplies of water pumped up, while the engineers repaired the damage done to the outside. Then, as soon as it began to get light, they rose up into the air, and were out of sight in a few moments. Some were let down into the heart of dense