breath he muttered something as he manipulated the controls.

The major, laughing a bit wildly, leaned from the shattered window and
let drive a few last pot-shots into the dark, at the faint flicker
of lights along the crest of the black cliff. In the gloom of the
pilot-house, his shoulders bulked huge as he fired. Captain Alden,
staggering back, sat down heavily on one of the sofa-lockers.

One or two faint shots still popped, along the cliff, with little
pin-pricks of fire in the dark. Then all sounds of opposition
vanished. The _Nissr_, upborne at her wonderful climbing-angle toward
the clouds painted by her searchlight--clouds like a rippled, moonlit
veil through which peeped faint stars--spiraled above the Hudson and
in a vast arc turned her beak into the south.

Disorder died. Silence fell, save for the whistling of the sudden wind
of the airship's own motion, and for the steadily mounting drone of
the huge propellers.

"Made it all right, by God!" exclaimed Bohannan, excitedly. "No
damage, either. If the floats had smashed when they hit the gate,
there'd have been a devil of an explosion--vacuum collapsing, you
know. Close call, but we made it! Now, if--"

"That will do!" the Master curtly interrupted, with steadfast eyes
peering out through the conning windows. Now that the first _élan_ of
excitement had spent itself, this strange man had once more resumed
his mantle of calm. Upborne on the wings of wondrous power, wings
all aquiver with their first stupendous leap into the night-sky,
the Master--impassive, watchful, cool--seemed as if seated in his