"That air-ship's going to kingdom-come!" said one--"Nothing can save it
if it takes to nose-diving down there!"

They all stared amazed--but the dreadful work on which they were
engaged left them no time for consideration of any other matter. The
priest watched a few minutes longer, more or less held spell-bound with
a kind of terror, for he saw that without doubt the great vessel was
either purposely descending or being drawn into the vast abyss yawning
black beneath it, and that falling thus it must be inevitably doomed to
destruction. Whoever piloted it must surely be determined to invite
this frightful end to its voyage, for nothing was ever steadier or more
resolute than its downward movement towards the whirling waters that
rushed through the canon. All suddenly it disappeared, whelmed as it
seemed in darkness and the roaring flood, and the watching priest made
the sign of the cross in air murmuring--

"God have mercy on their souls!"

Had he been able to see what happened he might have thought that the
confused brain of the dying boy who had imagined the air-ship to be an
angel, was not so far wrong, for no romancer or teller of wild tales
could have pictured a stranger or more unearthly sight than the
wonderful "White Eagle" poised at ease amid the tossed-up clouds of
spray flung from the seething mass of waters, while at her prow stood a
woman fair as any fabled goddess--a woman reckless of all danger, and
keenly on the alert, with bright eyes searching every nook and cranny
that could be discerned through the mist. Clear above the roaring
torrent her voice rang like a silver trumpet as she called her
instructions to the two men who, equally defying every peril, had
ventured on this journey at her command,--Rivardi and Gaspard.

"Let her down very gently inch by inch!" she cried; "It must be here
that we should seek!"

In absolute silence they obeyed. Both had given themselves up for lost
and were resigned and ready to meet death at any moment. From the first
they had made no effort to resist Morgana's orders--she and they had
left Sicily at a couple of hours' notice--and their three days' journey
across the ocean had been accomplished without adventure or accident,
at such a speed that it was hardly to be thought of without a thrill of
horror. No information had been given them as to the object of their
long and rapid aerial voyage,--and only now when the "White Eagle,"
swooping over California, reach