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 st