Came a third detonation--and, blinding in its intensity, a globe of fire burst almost beneath the window, five stories below.
The partners, shaking and pale, retreated hastily.

A swift, upward-rising shape swept over the courtyard and was gone--one of the air-fleet now launched to meet the attackers.
Far below a sudden crumbling shudder of masonry told the Billionaire not a moment was to be lost, for already one wing of the Administration Building was swaying to its fall.
"Quick, Waldron! Quick!" he shouted, in the shrill treble of senility, and ran into the corridor that led to the north wing.

Waldron, suddenly sobered, followed; and from the offices, where the night-shift of clerks were laboring (or had been, till the first explosion), came crowding pale and frightened men.

Not the fighting cast of Air Trust slaves, these, but the anaemic chemists and experimenters and clerical workers, scabs, to a man.

Now, in the common sentiment of fear, they jostled Flint and Waldron, as though these plutocrats had been but common clay.
And in the corridor a babel rose, through which fresh volleys and ever more and more violent explosions ripped and thundered.
Flint struck savagely at some who barred his way; and Waldron elbowed through, with curses.
"Get out of the way, you swine!" shrilled the old Billionaire.