Now
I'll give that fellow a lesson which he won't live to remember."
They swept through the poison-mist. Redgrave swung the wheel round. The
_Astronef_ dropped to the level of the ring of Martian vessels, which
had now got up speed again. Her steel ram was directed straight at the
vessel which had fired the last shot. Propelled at a speed of nearly two
hundred miles an hour, it took the strange-winged craft amidships. As
the shock came, Redgrave put his arm round Zaidie's waist and held her
close to him, otherwise she would have been flung against the forward
wall of the conning-tower.
[Illustration: _It took the strange-winged craft amidships._]
The Martian vessel stopped and bent up. They saw human figures more than
half as large again as men inside her staring at them through the
windows in the sides. There were others at the breaches of the guns in
the act of turning the muzzles on the _Astronef_; but this was only a
momentary glimpse, for in a second the _Astronef's_ spur had pierced
her, the Martian air-ship broke in twain, and her two halves plunged
downwards through the rosy clouds.
"Keep her at full speed, Andrew," said Redgrave down the speaking-tube,
"and stand by to jump if we want to."
"All ready, my Lord!" came back up the tube.
The old Yorkshireman during the last few minutes had undergone a
transformation which he himself hardly understood.
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