He rotated the rising-plane, and now soared to 2,800 feet.  Below and on either side of him, nothing but tenuous fog.  Ahead, the swiftly-approaching fan of radiance, white, dazzling, beautiful, that seemed to gush from earth so far below and to the eastward.  Already the thunders of the Falls were audible.

“Where are the others?” Gabriel wondered, his thoughts seeming to hum and roar in his head, in harmony with the shuddering diapason of the muffler-deadened exhaust.  “No way of telling, now.  Each man for himself—­and each to do his best!”

And then his thoughts reverted to Catherine; and round his heart a sudden yearning seemed to strengthen his stern, indomitable resolve—­“Victory or death!”

But now there was scant time for thought.  The moment of action was already close at hand.  Far below there, hidden by night and dark and mist, Gabriel knew a hundred thousand comrades, of the Fighting Sections, were lying hidden, waiting for the signal to advance.

“And it’s time, now!” he said aloud, thrilled by a wondrous sense of vast responsibility—­a sense that on this moment hung the fate of the world.  “It’s time for the signal.  Now then, up and at them!”

Taking the rocket—­a powerful affair, capable of casting an intense, calcium light—­he touched the fuse to a bit of smouldering punk fastened in a metal cup at his right hand.  Then, as it flared, he launched the rocket far into the void.

Below, came a quick spurt of radiance, in a long, vivid streak that shot away with incredible rapidity.  Gabriel followed it a moment, with his gaze, then smiled.

“The Rubicon is crossed,” said he.  “The gates of the Temple of Janus are open wide—­and now comes War!”

He rose again, skimming to a still higher altitude as the glare of the great Works drew closer and closer underneath.  The wind roared in his ears, louder than the whirling propellers.  The whole fabric of the aeroplane quivered as it climbed, up, up above the rushing, bellowing cataract.

“Where are the others?” thought he, and reached for a thanatos projectile, in the rack near the metal cup where the punk still glowered.

All at once, a glare of light burst upward through the white-glowing mist; and the ’plane reeled with the air-wave, as now a thunderous concussion boomed across the empty spaces of the sky.

At the same moment, a faint, ripping noise mounted to Gabriel—­a sound for all the world like the tearing of stout canvas.  Then followed a chattering racket, something like distant mowing-machines at work; and now all blent to a steady, determined uproar.  Gabriel almost thought to hear, as he launched his own projectile, far sounds as of the shouts and cries of men; but of this he could not make sure.

“They’re at it, anyhow!” he exulted.  “At it, at last!  By the way our men have launched the attack, the first explosion must have breached a wall!  God!  What wouldn’t I give to be down there, in the thick of it, rather than here!  I—­”