ouses, commissary offices, dwellings for the workers,
guards, and bosses. A well-built cottage on the main, forward-going
road that led from the gate to an inner stockade, was probably
headquarters for the chief engineers.

Not one sign of conscious life appeared. Men were lying here, there,
in the roadways, in the porches, in the shadow of the power-plant
where dynamos were still merrily singing. Few were armed. Most of them
here were workers, judging by their garb and by the tools still in
some hands.

The four pioneers gave them no heed, but pushed steadily on. In the
road lay a couple of pigeons, farther on a sparrow, and still farther
a sleeping dog, showed how complete had been the effect of the lethal
pellets.

The inner stockade was now close. It stood about twice as high as the
outer, was also topped with live wires and lights, and was loopholed
for defense. This formidable barrier was pierced by a small gate,
flanked by two machine-guns. On the gate-post was affixed an elaborate
set of rules regarding those who might and might not enter. The Master
smiled dryly, and opened the gate.

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