Even from without, the loom of the monstrous airship had been visible.
The eye could hardly at first glance take in the vastness of this
stupendous thing, that overshadowed all the central portion of the
huge enclosure. It gave a sense of power, of swift potentialities, of
speed unlimited. It stood there, tense, ready, waiting, with a hum
of engines audible in its vast heart, a thing almost of life, man's
creation but how illimitably greater than man!

For a moment, as this tremendous winged fabric came to the Master's
view, he halted, and a look of exultation, pride, and joy came over
his face. But only for a moment. Quite at once his dark eyes veiled
themselves with their habitual impassivity. Once more he strode
forward, the others following him.

Now that they were inside the second barrier--where sleeping men were
scattered more thickly than ever--they stood under the very wings of
the most stupendous hydroplane ever conceived by the brain of man or
executed by the cunning of his hand.

That this hydroplane had been almost on the moment of departure for
its trial trip, was proved by the sleepers. Two were on the gangplank
leading up to the entrance door in the fuselage. A number who had been
knocking out the last holding-pins of the last shackles that bound it
to its cradle, had fallen to earth, their sledge-hammers near at hand.

In the pilot-house, a figure had collapsed across the sill of an
observation window. And the engines, purring softly, told that all had
been in readiness for the throwing-in of the clutches that would have
set the vast propellers spinning with roaring speed.