pe, Ribiera, that you won't look
as if you were frightened. If there's any hitch, and delay for letting
some fuel out of the tanks or messing up the motors, I'll be very
sorry for you."

* * * * *

The car swooped out into bright sunshine. The flying field lay below,
already in the shadow of the banking clouds above. Hangars lay
stretched out across the level space.

Through the gates. Ribiera licked his lips. Bell jammed the revolver
muzzles closer against his sides. The chauffeur halted the car. Paula
spoke softly to him. He stiffened. Bell found it possible to smile
faintly.

Ribiera gave orders. There was a moment's pause--the revolver muzzles
went deeper into his side--and he snarled a repetition. The official
cringed and moved swiftly.

"You have chosen your slaves well, Ribiera," said Bell coolly. "They
seem to occupy all strategic positions. We'll ride across."

The gears clashed. The car swerved forward and went deliberately
across the wide clear space that was the flying field. It halted near
the farther side. In minutes the door of a hangar swung wide. There
was the sputtering of a not-yet-warmed-up motor. The big plane came
slowly out, its motors coughing now and then. It swung clumsily across
the field, turned in a wide circle, and stopped some forty or fifty
feet from the car.

"Send the mechanic back, on foot," said Bell softly.

Again Ribiera found it expedient to snarl. And Bell added, gently,
while the throttled-down motors of the big amphibian boomed on:

"Now get out of the car."

Tiny figures began to gaze curiously at them from the row of hangars.
The mechanic, starting back on foot, the four people getting out of
the car, the big plane waiting....

* * * * *

With his revolver ready and aimed at Ribiera's bulk, Bell reached in
the front of the car and turned off the switch. The motor died
abruptly. He put the key in his pocket.

"Just to get a minute or two extra start," he said dryly. "Climb up in
the plane, Paula."

She obeyed, and turned at the top.

"I will cover them until you are up," she said quietly.

Bell laughed, now. A genuine laugh, for the first time in many days.

"We do work together!" he said cheerfully.

But he backed up the ladder. There was a stirring over by the hangars.
The mechanic who had taxied the plane to this spot was a dwindling
speck, no more than a third of the way across the field.