Yet the glare of the conflagration, below, was luridly shuddering through the fog, painting it all a dull and awful red.
Red! Suddenly words came into Gabriel's mind--the words of his own poem: ...

Red as blood, red as blood! The blood of the shattered miner, Blood of the boy in the rifle pits, blood of the coughing child-slave, Blood of the mangled trainman, blood that the Carpenter shed! "For your sake! For the world's sake, this!" he cried, and hurled another thanatos.

"If ever war of liberation was holy, this is that war!" Suddenly, through all the turmoil of shattering explosions, tossing air-currents and drifting, acrid smoke, he became conscious of a sudden, swift-flying pursuer.
By the light of the burning Plant, down there somewhere in the vapors of the thunderous Falls, he saw a hawk-like 'plane that swooped toward him with incredible velocity, savage and lean and black.
Off to the right, a sudden spattering of shots in mid-air told him the battle in the sky was likewise being engaged.

He saw vague, veiled explosions, there, then a swift, falling trail of flame.

A pang shot through his heart.