Part 2 (1/2)

More than one swept perilously close, as he pushed his auto-plane on at top speed; but they showed no inclination to attack, for which he was devoutly thankful.

Over the metropolitan area, the scene was one beggaring description.

All the five boroughs were a blazing checker-board. New Jersey, Connecticut, Westchester--all were raging. Hundreds of those deadly bombs must have burst in Manhattan alone.

But the fire department there seemed to have the situation in hand, he noticed as he swept down onto the Plaza landing platform.

Leaving his plane with an attendant, he took the first elevator to the street level, and crossing hastily to the Press tower, mounted to the city room.

There absolute pandemonium raged. Typewriters were sputtering, telegraph keys clicking, phones buzzing, reporters coming and going in a steady stream, mingled with the frantic orders of editors, sub-editors, copy readers, composing-room men and others.

Carter fought through the bedlam to the city editor's desk.

”Sorry I couldn't bring you that egg, Chief,” he said, with a grim smile. ”I had one right in my hand, but it hatched out on me.”

Overton looked up wearily. He was a man who had seen a miracle, a G.o.dless miracle that restored his faith in the devil.

”Don't talk--just write!” he growled. ”I've seen and heard too much to-night. We're all going to h.e.l.l, I guess--unless we're already there.”

But Jim wasn't ready to write yet.

”What's the dope elsewhere? The same?”

”All over the map! We're frying, from coast to coast.”

”And abroad?”

”Cooked, everywhere!” He paused, and turned an imploring face to Jim.

”Tell me, Carter--what's happening? You've seen Wentworth, I suppose.

What's he make of it?”

”He--doesn't know.”

”G.o.d help us! Well, go write your story. If we've got a plant by press time, we'll have something on page one to-morrow--if there's anyone to read it.”

By morning the fires in the metropolitan area had been brought under control and it was found that neither the loss of life nor the damage was as great as had at first been feared. Mainly it was the older types of buildings that had suffered the most.

The same thing was true in other parts of the country and elsewhere in the world; and elsewhere, as in New York, people pulled themselves together, cleared up the debris, and went ahead with their occupations. Business was resumed, and rebuilding operations were begun.

Meanwhile, where were those fiery moths that had sprung so devastatingly from their strange coc.o.o.ns?

For a while no one knew and it was believed they had indeed winged off into interstellar s.p.a.ce, as Joan had suggested that night on Observatory Hill.

Then came rumors that damped these hopes, followed by eye-witness reports that altogether dashed them. The bat-like monsters had flown, not off into s.p.a.ce, but to the world's waste-lands.

Strange, it was, the instinct that had led them unerringly to the remotest point of each continent. In North America it was the great Arizona desert, in South America the pampas of Argentina, in Europe the steppes of Russia, in Asia the Desert of Gobi, in Africa the Sahara, in Australia the Victoria; while in the British Isles, Philippines, New Zealand, Madagascar, Iceland, the East Indies, West Indies, South Seas and other islands of the world, the interiors were taken over by the demons, the populace fleeing for their lives.