Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/189

Rh came pouring down on to the terrified spectators.

Days and nights passed by, and the fighting still continued without intermission. Sometimes the contending fleets came down into the air, and then the earth re-echoed with the terrific roar of combat. The huge battleships could then be seen quite plainly moving hither and thither, with their flags waving in the breeze and a few sailors like little black ants clustering along the bulwarks of the upper-deck. Sometimes terrific combats took place within a few hundred yards of the surface of the earth, and the air was rent by the thunder of the guns, the explosion of torpedoes, and the clashing together of the waves of Ednogen, while all surrounding objects were obscured by clouds of vapour. Then the victors would dash away and leave the ground beneath strewn with dead bodies, heaps of mangled frameworks, and metal sheathing half buried in the ground. But the Sirians had to pay 12