Page:Wells - The War in the Air (Boni & Liveright, 1918).djvu/59

Rh. It seemed to him his weapon had been wrested from him at the moment of victory. The fire lay like a dying thing, close to the ground and wicked; it gave a leap of anguish at every whack of the beaters. But now Grubb had gone off to stamp out the burning blanket; the others were slacking just at the moment of victory. One had dropped the cushion and was running to the motor-car. "'Ere!" cried Bert; "keep on!"


 * He flung the deflated burning rags of cushion aside, whipped off his jacket and sprang at the flames with a shout. He stamped into the ruin until flames ran up his boots. Edna saw him, a red-lit hero, and thought it was good to be a man.


 * A bystander was hit by a hot halfpenny flying out of the air. Then Bert thought of the papers in his pockets, and staggered back, trying to extinguish his burning jacket — checked, repulsed, dismayed.


 * Edna was struck by the benevolent appearance of an elderly spectator in a silk hat and Sabbatical garments. "Oh!" she cried to him. "Help this young man! How can you stand and see it?"


 * A cry of "The tarpaulin!" arose.


 * An earnest-looking man in a very light grey cycling-suit had suddenly appeared at the side of the lame motor-car and addressed the owner. "Have you a tarpaulin?" he said.


 * "Yes," said the gentlemanly man. "Yes. We've got a tarpaulin."


 * "That's it," said the earnest-looking man, suddenly shouting. "Let's have it, quick!"


 * The gentlemanly man, with feeble and