ship's keel, would have swarmed our deck, placing my rising hope
of escape in sudden and total eclipse.

I was too old a hand in aerial warfare to be at a loss now for the
right manoeuvre. Simultaneously I reversed the engines and dropped
the little vessel a sheer hundred feet.

Above my head I could see the dangling forms of the boarding party
as the battleship raced over us. Then I rose at a sharp angle,
throwing my speed lever to its last notch.

Like a bolt from a crossbow my splendid craft shot its steel prow
straight at the whirring propellers of the giant above us. If I
could but touch them the huge bulk would be disabled for hours and
escape once more possible.

At the same instant the sun shot above the horizon, disclosing a
hundred grim, black faces peering over the stern of the battleship
upon us.

At sight of us a shout of rage went up from a hundred throats. Orders
were shouted, but it was too late to save the giant propellers,
and with a crash we rammed them.

Instantly with the shock of impact I reversed my engine, but my
prow was wedged in the hole it had made in the battleship's stern.
Only a second I hung there before tearing away, but that second
was amply long to swarm my deck with black devils.

There was no fight. In the first place there was no room to fight.