"What," demanded the Master, "is your opinion of the peculiar and

sudden fall of all your companions?"

"I have no opinion as to that. Strange air-currents, failure of
ignition due to lack of oxygen--how do I know? A thousand things may
happen in the air."

"Not to more than a hundred planes, all in a half-hour."

The Frenchman shrugged indifferent shoulders and smiled.

"It does not signify, in the least," he murmured. "I am here. That
suffices."

"Do you realize that I, perhaps, have forces at my command which may
negative ordinary conditions and recognized laws?"

"Nothing can negative the forces of organized society. I repeat my
request, _monsieur_, for your unconditional written surrender."

The Master's hand slid over the desk and rested a moment on a button
there. A certain slight tremor passed through the Frenchman's body.
Into his eyes leaped an expression of wonder, of astonishment. His
mouth quivered, as if he would have spoken; but he remained dumb.
The hand that held his cigarette, resting on his knee, relaxed; the
cigarette fell, smoldering, to the metal plate. And on the instant the
fire in it died, extinguished by some invisible force.

"Are you prepared to sign a receipt for this airship, if I deliver her
over to you, sir?" demanded the Master, still speaking in French. He
smiled oddly.

No answer. A certain swelling of the Frenchman's throat became
visible, and his lips twitched slightly, but no sound was audible. A
dull flush mounted over his bronzed cheek.

"Ah, you do not answer?" asked the other, with indulgent patronage.
"I assume, however, that you have the authority to accept my surrender
and that of my crew. I assume, also, that you are willing to sign for
the airship." He opened a drawer, took a paper, and on it wrote a few
words. These he read over carefully, adding a comma, a period.

Leclair watched him with fixed gaze, struggling against some strange
paralysis that bound him with unseen cords of steel. The Frenchman's
eyes widened, but remained unblinking with a sort of glazed fixity.
The Master slid the paper toward him on the desk.

"_Voilà, monsieur!_" said he. "Will you sign this?"

A shivering tremor of the Frenchman's muscles, as the ace sat there so
strangely silent and motionless, betrayed the effort he was making
to rise, to lift even a hand. Beads of sweat began to ooze on his
forehead; veins to knot there Still he remained seated, without power
to speak or move.

"What? You do not accept?" asked the Master, frowning as with
puzzlement and displeasure. "But, _allons donc!_ this is strange
indeed. Almost as strange as the fact that your whole air-squadron,
with the sole exception of your own plane, was dropped through the
clouds.

"I have no wish unnecessarily to trouble your mind. Let me state the
facts. Not one of those machines was precipitated into the sea. No
life was lost. Ah, that astonishes you?"

The expression in the Frenchman's face betrayed intense amazement,
through his eyes alone. The rest of his features remained almost
immobile. The Master smiling, continued:

"The fleet was dropped to exactly one thousand feet above the sea.
There the inhibition on the engines was released and the engines began
functioning again. So no harm was done. But not one of those machines
can rise again higher than one thousand feet until I so choose.

"They are all hopelessly outdistanced, far down there below the
cloud-floor. Midges could catch a hawk as readily as _they_ could
overhaul this Eagle of the Sky.

"Nowhere within a radius of twenty-five miles can any of those planes
rise to our level. This is curious, but true. In the same way, on much
the same principle, though through a very different application of it,
you cannot speak or move until I so desire. All your voluntary muscles
are completely, even though temporarily, paralyzed. The involuntary
ones, which carry on your vital processes, are untouched.

"In one way, _monsieur_, you are as much alive as ever In another you
are almost completely dead. Your fleet has enjoyed the distinction of
having been the very first to serve as the object of a most important
experiment. Likewise, your own person has had the honor of serving
as material for another experiment, equally important--an experiment
whose effect on your body is similar to that of the first one on the
air-fleet.

"You can hear me, perfectly. You can see me. I ask you to watch me
closely. Then consider, if you please, the matter of placing me under
arrest."

His hand touched a small disk near the button he had first pressed;
a disk of some strange metal, iridescent, gleaming with a peculiar
greenish patina that, even as one watched it, seemed to blend into
other shades, as an oil-scum transmutes its hues on water.

Now a faint, almost inaudible hum began to make itself heard. This hum
was not localized. One could not have told exactly whence it came. It
filled the cabin with a kind of soft murmuring that soothed the senses
like the drowsy undertone of bees at swarm.

For a moment nothing happened. Then the pupils of Leclair's eyes began
to dilate with astonishment. Immovable though he still remained, the
most intense wonder made itself apparent in his look. Even something
akin to fear was mirrored in his gaze. Again his lips twitched. Though
he could form no word, a dry, choking gasp came from his throat.

And there was cause for astonishment; yes, even for fear. A thing
was beginning to take place, there in the brightly lighted cabin of
_Nissr_, such as man's eye never yet had beheld.

The Master was disappearing.




CHAPTER XVII


MIRACLES, SCOURGE OF FLAME

His form, sitting there at the desk--his face wearing an odd
smile--had already begun to grow less distinct. It seemed as if the
light surrounding him had faded, though everywhere else in the cabin
it still gleamed with its accustomed brilliance. And as this light
around him began to blur into a russet dimness, forming a sort of
screen between him and visibility, the definition of his outlines
began to melt away.

The Master still remained visible, as a whole; but the details of him
were surely vanishing. And as they vanished, faintly a high-light, a
shadow, a bit of metal-work showed through the space where he sat.
He seemed a kind of dissolving cloud, through which now more and more
clearly objects beyond him could be distinguished. Impossible though
this seemed, it was indubitably true.

As he disappeared, he kept speaking. The effect of that undiminished
voice, calm, slow, resonant, issuing from that disintegrating vapor,
stirred the hair on the captive Frenchman's neck and scalp.

"Vibration, _mon cher monsieur_," said he, "is everything. According
to the researches of the Ecole Polytechnique, in Paris--no doubt you,
yourself, have studied there, _n'est-ce pas?_--vibration of the first
octave from 2 to 8 per second, give us no sense-impression. From the
fourth to the fifteenth octave, 16 to 32,768 per second, we get sound.
The qualities of the 16th to the 24th are--or have been, until I
investigated--quite unknown. The 25th to the 35th, 33, 554, 432 to 34,
859, 738, 868 vibrations per second, give us electricity. Thence to
the 45th, again unknown.

"The 4th to the 48th give us heat. The 49th gives light The 50th,
chemical rays, vibrating 1, 125, 899, 906, 842, 624 per second. The
51st to the 57th have never been touched by anyone save myself. The
X-ray group extends from the 58th to the 61st octave. The 62d, with 4,
611, 686, 427, 889, 904 vibrations per second, is a field where only
I have worked. And beyond these, no doubt, other octaves extend with
infinite possibilities.

"You will note, _monsieur_," he continued, while the dun penumbra
still more and more withdrew him from Leclair's sight, "that great
lacunae exist in the scale of vibratory phenomena. Some of the
so-called lower animals take cognizance of vibrations that mean
nothing to us. Insects hear notes far above our dull ears. Ants are
susceptible to lights and colors unseen to our limited eyes. The
emperor-moth calls its mate--so says Fabre--by means of olfactory
vibrations totally uncomprehended by us. The universe is full of hues,
tones, radiant phenomena that escape us, because our senses are not
attuned to them."

Steadily he spoke, and steadily the humming drone that filled the
cabin kept its undertones that lulled, that soothed. The Frenchman,
staring, hardly breathed. Rigid he sat and pale, with sweat now slowly
guttering down his face, his jaws clamped hard and white.

"If the true nature of the universe could suddenly be revealed to our
senses," went on the Master, now hardly more than a dull blur, "we
could not survive. The crash of cosmic sound, the blaze of strange
lights, the hurricane forces of tempestuous energies sweeping space
would blind, deafen, shrivel, annihilate us like so many flies swept
into a furnace. Nature has been kind; she has surrounded us with
natural ray-filters of protection."

His voice now seemed issuing from a kind of vacancy. Save for a slight
darkening of the air, nothing was visible of him. He went on:

"With our limited senses we are, in a way, merely peeping out
of little slits in an armored conning-tower of life, out at the
stupendous vibratory battles of the cosmos. Other creatures, in other
planets, no doubt have other sense-organs to absorb other vibratory
ranges. Their life-experiences are so different from ours that
we could not possibly grasp them, any more than a blind man could
understand a painting.

"Nor could those creatures understand human life. We are safe in
our own little corner of the universe, comfortably sheltered in our
vestments of clay. And what we cannot understand, though it is all
perfectly natural, we call religion, the supernatural, God."

From a great vacancy, the Master's words proceeded. Leclair, tugging
in vain at the bonds that, invisible yet strong as steel, held him
powerless, stared with wild eyes.

"There is no supernatural," said the now disembodied voice. "What
we call spirit, psychic force, hypnosis, spiritualism, the fourth
dimension, is really only life on another scale of vibration. If we
could see the whole scale, we would recognize it as a vast, coherent,
perfectly natural and rational whole, in which we human beings fill
but a very insignificant part. That, monsieur, is absolutely true!

"I have investigated, I have ventured along the coasts of the unknown
vibratory sea, and even sailed out a little way on the waters of
that unknown, mysterious ocean. Yet even I know nothing. What you are
beholding now is simply a slightly new form of vibratory effect. The
force that is holding you paralyzed on that chair is still another. A
third, sent down the air-squadron. And--there are many more.

"I am not really vanishing. That is but an illusion of your senses,
unable to penetrate the screen surrounding me. I am still here, as
materially as ever. Illusion, _mon cher monsieur_, yet to you very
real!"

The voice seemed moving about. The Frenchman now perceived something
like a kind of moving blur in the cabin. It appeared a sort of hole of
darkness, in the light; and yet the light shone through it, too.


Every human eye has a blind spot in the retina. When things pass over
this blind spot, they absolutely vanish; the other eye supplies the
missing object. To the French ace it seemed that his eyes were all
blind spots, so far as the Master was concerned. The effect of this
vacancy moving about, shifting a chair, stirring a book, speaking to
him like a spirit disembodied, its footfalls audible but its own self
invisible, chilled the captive's blood. The Master said:

"Now I have totally disappeared from your eye or any other material
eye. I cannot even see myself! No doubt dwellers on some other planet
would perceive me by some means we cannot imagine. Yet I am materially
here. You feel my touch, now, on your shoulder. See, now I put out the
lights; now I draw aside this curtain, and admit the golden morning
radiance. You see that radiance, but you do not see me.

"A miracle? _Pas du tout!_ Nothing but an application of perfectly
natural laws. And so--well, now let us come back to the matter under
discussion. You have come hither to arrest me, _monsieur_. What do
you think of arresting me, now? I am going to leave that to your own
judgment."

His voice approached the desk. The chair moved slightly, and gave
under his weight. Something touched the button on the desk. Something
pressed the iridescent metal disk. The humming note sank, faded, died
away.

Gradually a faint haze gathered in the chair. Dim, brownish fog
congealed there. The chair became clouded with it; and behind that
chair objects grew troubled, turbid, vague.

The ace felt inhibitions leaving him. His eyes began to blink; his
half-opened mouth closed with a snap; a long, choking groan escaped
his lips.

"_Nom de Dieu_" he gulped, and fell weakly to rubbing his arms and
legs that still prickled with a numb tingling. "_Mais, nom de Dieu!_"

The Master, now swiftly becoming visible, stood up again, smiled,
advanced toward his guest--or prisoner, if you prefer.

A moment he stood there, till every detail had grown as clear as
before this astounding demonstration of his powers. Then he stretched
forth his hand.

"Leclair," said he, in a voice of deep feeling, "I know and appreciate
you for a man of parts, of high courage and devotion to duty in the
face of almost certain death. The manner in which you came ahead, even
after all your companions had fallen--in which you boarded us, with
the strong probability of death confronting you, proves you the kind
of man who wins and keeps respect among fighting men.

"If you still desire my arrest and the delivery to you of this
air-liner, I am at your complete disposal. You have only to sign the
receipt I have already written. If--" and for a moment the Master
paused, while his dark eyes sought and held the other's, "if,
_monsieur_, you desire to become one of the Flying Legion, and to take
part in the greatest adventure ever conceived by the mind of man, in
the name of all the Legion I welcome you to comradeship!"

"_Dieu_!" choked the lieutenant, gripping the Master's hand. "You mean
that I--I--"

"Yes, that you can be one of us."

"Can that be true?"

"It is!"

The Master's right hand closed firmly on Leclair's. The Master's other
hand went out and gripped him by the shoulder.

To his feet sprang the Frenchman. Though still shaken and trembling,
he drew himself erect. His right hand loosened itself from the
Master's; it went to his aviator's helmet in a sharp salute.

"_J'y suis! J'y reste!_" cried he. "_Mon capitaine!_"

The day passed uneventfully, at high altitudes, steadily rushing
into the eye of the East. In the stillness and solitude of the upper
air-lanes, _Nissr_ roared onward, invincibly, with sun and sky above,
with shining clouds piled below in swiftly retreating masses that spun
away to westward.

Far below, sea-storm and rain battled over the Atlantic. Upborne on
the wings of the eastward-setting wind, _Nissr_ felt nothing of such
trivialities. Twice or thrice, gaps in the cloud-veil let dim ocean
appear to the watchers in the glass observation pits; and once
they spied a laboring speck on the waters--a great passenger-liner,
worrying toward New York in heavy weather. The doings of such, and of
the world below, seemed trivial to the Legionaries as follies of dazed
insects.

No further attack was made on _Nissr_, nor was anything seen of any
other air-squadron of International Police. The wireless picked up,
however, a cross-fire of dazed, uncomprehending messages being hurled
east and west, north and south--messages of consternation, doubt,
anger.

The world, wholly at a loss to understand the thing that had come upon
it, was listening to reports from the straggling Azores fleet as it
staggered into various ports. Every continent already was buzzing with
alarm and rage. In less than eighteen hours the calm and peaceful ways
of civilization had received an epoch-making jar. All civilization was
by the ears--it had become a hornet's nest prodded by a pole no one
could understand or parry.

And the Master, sitting at his desk with reports and messages piling
up before him, with all controls at his finger-tips, smiled very
grimly to himself.

"If they show such hysteria at just the initial stages of the game,"
he murmured, "what will they show when--"

The Legion had already begun to fall into well-disciplined routine,
each man at his post, each doing duty to the full, whether that
duty lay in pilot-house or cooks' galley, in engine-room or pit, in
sick-bay or chartroom. The gloom caused by the death and burial at
sea of Travers, the New Zealander, soon passed. This was a company
of fighting men, inured to death in every form. And death they had
reckoned as part of the payment to be made for their adventuring.
This, too, helped knit the fine mass-spirit already binding them
together into a coherent, battling group.

A little after two in the afternoon, _Nissr_ passed within far sight
of the Azores, visible in cloud-rifts as little black spots sown
on the waters like sparse seeds on a burnished plate of metal. This
habitation of man soon slipped away to westward, and once more nothing
remained but the clear, cold severity of space, with now and then a
racing drift of rain below, and tumbling, stormy weather all along the
sea horizons.

The Master and Bohannan spent some time together after the Azores had
been dropped astern and off the starboard quarter. "Captain Alden"
remained in her cabin. She reported by phone, however, that the wound
was really only superficial, through the fleshy upper part of the
left arm. If this should heal by first intention, as it ought, no
complications were to be expected.

Day drew on toward the shank of the afternoon. The sun, rayless,
round, blue-white, lagged away toward the west, seeming to sway in
high heaven as _Nissr_ took her long dips with the grace and swiftness
of a flying falcon. Some time later the cloud-masses thinned and broke
away, leaving the world of waters spread below in terrible immensity.

As the African coast drew near, its arid influences banished vapor.
Now, clear to the up-curving edge of the world, nothing could be seen
below save the steel-gray, shining plains of water. Waves seemed not
to exist. All looked smooth and polished as a mirror of bright metal.

At last, something like dim veils of whiteness began to draw and
shimmer on the eastern skyline--the vague glare of the sun-crisped
Sahara flinging its furnace ardor to the sky. To catch first sight
of land, the Master and Bohannan climbed the ladder again, to the
take-off, and thence made their way into the starboard observation
gallery. There they brought glasses to bear. Though nothing definite
could yet be seen through the shrouding dazzle that swaddled the
world's rim, this fore-hint of land confirmed their reckonings of
latitude and longitude.

"We can't be more than a hundred and fifty miles west of the
Canaries," judged the major. "Sure, we can eat supper tonight in an
oasis, if we're so minded--with Ouled Naïls and houris to hand round
the palm-wine and--"

"You forget, my dear fellow," the Master interrupted, "that the first
man who goes carousing with wine or women, dies before a firing-squad.
That's not the kind of show we're running!"

"Ah, sure, I did forget!" admitted the Celt. "Well, well, a look at a
camel and a palm tree could do no harm. And it won't be long, at this
rate, before--"

A sudden, violent concussion, far aft, sent a quivering shudder
through the whole fabric of the giant liner. Came a swift burst of
flame; black, greasy smoke gushed from the stern, trailing on the
high, cold air. Long fire-tongues, banners of incandescence, flailed
away, roaring into space.

Shouts burst, muffled, from below. A bell jangled madly. The crackle
of pistol-fire punched dully through the rushing swiftness.

With a curse the major whirled. Frowning, the Master turned and
peered. _Nissr_, staggering, tilted her beak sharply oceanward. At a
sick angle, she slid, reeling, toward the burnished, watery floor that
seemed surging up to meet her.

A hoarse shout from the far end of the take-off drew the Master's eyes
thither. With strange agility, almost apelike in its prehensile power,
a human figure came clambering up over the outer works, clutching at
stays, wires, struts.

Other shouts echoed thinly in the rarefied, high air. The climber
laughed with savage mockery.

"I've done for _you_!" he howled exultantly. "Fuel-tanks afire--you'll
all go to Hell blazing when they explode! But first--I'll get the boss
pirate of the outfit--"

Swiftly the clutching figure scrabbled in over the rail, dropped
to the metal plates of the take-off--now slanting steeply down and
forward--and broke into a staggering run directly toward the gallery
where stood Bohannan and the Master.

At the little ladder-housing sounded a warning shout. The head and
shoulders of Captain Alden became visible there. In Alden's right hand
glinted a service-revolver.

But already the attacker--the stowaway--had snatched a pistol from his
belt. And, as he plunged at full drive down the take-off platform, he
thrust the pistol forward.

Almost at point-blank range, howling maledictions, he hurled a
murderous fusillade at the Master of the now swiftly falling Eagle of
the Sky.




CHAPTER XVIII


"CAPTAIN ALDEN" MAKES GOOD

The crash of shattered glass mingled with the volley flung by the
murderously spitting automatic of the stowaway. From the forward
companion, at the top of the ladder, "Captain Alden" fired--one shot
only.

No second shot was needed. For the attacker, grunting, lunged forward,
fell prone, sprawled on the down-slanting plates of the take-off
platform. His pistol skidded away, clattering, over the buffed metal.

"As neat a shot as the other's was bad," calmly remarked the Master,
brushing from his sleeve some glittering splinters of glass. A lurch
of _Nissr_ threw him against the rail. He had to steady himself there,
a moment. Down his cheek, a trickle of blood serpented. "Yes, rather
neat," he approved.

He felt something warm on his face, put up his hand and inspected red
fingers.

"Hm! A sliver from that broken shield must have cut me," said he, and
dismissed it wholly from his mind.

Major Bohannan, with chromatic profanity, ran from the gallery.
"Captain Alden" drew herself up the top rounds of the ladder, emerged
wholly from the companion and likewise started for the wounded
interloper. Both, as they ran aft toward the fallen man, zigzagged
with the pitch and yaw of the stricken airship, slipped on the plates,
staggered up the incline.

And others, from the aft companion, now came running with cries, their
bodies backgrounded by the leaping flames and smoke that formed a wake
behind the wounded Eagle of the Sky.

Before the major and Alden could reach the stowaway, he rallied. Up
to hands and knees he struggled. He dragged himself away to starboard.
Trailing blood, he scrambled to the rail.

The major snatched his revolver from its holster. Up came the
"Captain's" gun, once more.

"No, no!" the Master shouted, stung into sudden activity. "Not that!
Alive--take him alive!"

The stowaway's answer was a laugh of wild derision; a hideous, shrill,
tremulous laugh that rose in a kind of devilish, mockery on the air of
that high level. For just a second the man hung there, swaying, at the
rail. Beyond him, up the tilt of the falling _Nissr_, brighter flames
whipped back. Came a burst of smoke, another concussion, a shuddering
impact that trembled through the whole vast air-liner. White-hot
fire ribboned back and away, shredded into little, whirling gusts of
incandescence that dissolved in black smoke.

"Take me alive, eh?" the stowaway shouted, madly. "Ha-ha! I see you!
You're all dead men, anyhow! I'll go first--show you I'm not afraid!"

With astonishing agility he leaped. Hands on rail, with a last supreme
burst of the energy that innervated his dying body, he vaulted clear.
Out and away he hurled himself. Emptiness of space gathered him to its
dizzy, vacant horror.

The Master, quite unmindful of the quickening bloodstream down his
face and neck, looked sharply--as if impersonally interested in some
problem of ballistics--at the spinning, gyrating figure that with
grotesque contortions plummeted the depths.

Over and over, whirling with outflung arms and legs, dropped the
stowaway. Down though _Nissr_ herself was plunging, he fell faster.
Swiftly his body dwindled, shrinking to a dwarf, an antlike thing, a
black dot. Far below on the steely sea-plain, a tiny bubble of white
leaped out, then faded. That pinpoint of foam was the stowaway's
grave.

"Very good," approved the Master, unmoved. He lurched against the
rail, as a sudden maneuver of the pilot somewhat flattened out the
air-liner's fall. The helicopters began to turn, to buzz, to roar
into furious activity, seeking to check the plunge. The major came
staggering back. But quicker than he, "Captain Alden" was at the
Master's side.

"He shot you?" the woman cried, pointing.

"Bah! A splinter of glass!" And the Master shook off the blood with
a twitch of his head. "That was a neat bull's-eye you made on him,
Captain. It saves you from punishment for forgetting you were under
arrest; for climbing the ladder and coming above-decks. Yes--I've got
to rescind my order. You're at liberty. And--"

"And I stay with the expedition, sir?" demanded Alden, her hand going
out in an involuntary gesture of appeal. For the first time, she
was showing eagerness of a feminine sort. But she suppressed it,
instantly, and stood at attention. "If I have done you any service,
sir, reward me by letting me stay!"

"I will see. There may be no expedition to stay with. Now--"

"Life-belts, sir? And take to the small planes?" came a voice from
the companion-way. The face of Manderson--of him who had found the
stowaway--appeared there. Manderson looked anxious, a trifle pale.
Aft, more figures were appearing. In spite of the iron discipline of
the Legion, signs of disorder were becoming evident. "We're hard hit,
sir," Manderson reported. "Every man for himself, now? Orders, sir?"

"My orders are, every man back to his post!" cried the Master, his
voice a trumpet-call of resolution. "There'll be no _sauve qui peut_,
here!" He laid a hand on the butt of his pistol. "Back, every man of
you!"

Came another dull, jarring explosion. _Nissr_ reeled to port. The
Legionaries trickled down the companion-ladders. From somewhere below
a cry rose: "The aft starboard float--it's gone! And the stabilizer--"

Confused sounds echoed. _Nissr_ sagged drunkenly, lost headway and
slewed off her course, turning slowly in the thin, cold air. Her
propellers had been shut off; all the power of her remaining engines
had now been clutched into the helicopter-drive.

The Master, indifferently smearing off the blood from his neck, made
his way toward the forward companion. He had to hold the rail with one
hand, for now the metal plates of the observation gallery were sharply
canted. _Nissr_ had got wholly out of control, so far as steerage-way
was concerned; but the rate of her fall seemed to have been a trifle
checked.

Alden and the major followed their chief to the companion. All three
descended the ladder, which hung inward and away from them at a sharp
angle. They reached the strangely inclined floor of the main corridor,
and, bracing themselves against the port wall, worked their way aft.

Not all the admirable discipline of the Legion could prevent some
confusion. Such of the men as were on duty in pilot-house, pits,
wireless, or engine-room were all sticking; but a number of off-duty
Legionaries were crowding into the main corridor. Among them the
Master saw Leclair and Rrisa. No one showed fear. The white feather
was not visible; but a grim tension had developed. Death, imminent,
sobers the boldest.

From the engine-room, shouts, orders, were echoing. The engine-room
door flung open. Smoke vomited--thick, choking, gray. Auchincloss
reeled out, clutching at his throat.

"What chance?" the Master cried, staggering toward him.

"If--the fire spreads to the forward petrol-tanks, none!" gasped the
chief engineer. "Aft pit's flooded with blazing oil. Gorlitz--my God!"

"What about Gorlitz?"

"Burned alive--to a crisp! I've got four extinguishers at work. Two
engines out of commission. Another only limping! And--"

He crumpled, suddenly, dropping to the metals. The Master saw through
the clinging smoke, by the dimmed light of the frosted disks, that the
skin of the engineer's face and hands was cooked to a char.

"If he's breathed flame--" began the major. Alden knelt beside him,
peered closely, made a significant, eloquent gesture.

"Volunteers!" shouted the Master, plunging forward.

Into the fumes and smother, half a dozen men fought their way. From
the bulkheads they snatched down the little fire-grenades. The Master
went first. Bohannan was second, with Rrisa a close third. Leclair in
his forward rush almost stumbled over Alden. The "Captain," masked and
still unrecognized as a woman by any save the Master, was thrust back
from the door by the Celt, as she too tried to enter.

"No, not you!" he shouted. "You, with only one arm--faith, it's worse
than useless! Back, you!" Then he and many plunged into the blazing
engine-room.

Thus they closed with the fire-devil now licking ravenous tongues
about the vitals of _Nissr_.




CHAPTER XIX


HOSTILE COASTS

An hour from that time, the air-liner was drifting sideways at low
altitudes, hardly five hundred feet above the waves. A sad spectacle
she made, her wreckage gilded by the infinite splendors of the sun now
lowering toward the horizon. Her helicopters were droning with all the
force that could be flung into them from the crippled power-plant. Her
propellers--some charred to mere stumps on their shafts--stood starkly
motionless.

Oddly awry she hung, driven slowly eastward by the wind. Her rudder
was burned clean off; her stern, warped, reeking with white fumes that
drifted on the late afternoon air told of the fury that had blazed
about her. Flames no longer roared away; but the teeth of their
consuming rage had bitten deep. Where the aft observation pit had
been, now only a twisted net of metal-work remained, with all the
plate-glass melted and cracked away. The body of Gorlitz, trapped
there, had mercifully fallen into the sea. That ghastly thing, at any
rate, no longer remained.

Four Legionaries were in the pilot-house: the Master, Bohannan,