nging to the swaying rope. "Help her, someone! Tom! Ned! She'll
fall!"

The eccentric man started to rush from the motor room, where he had
been helping Ned. But the latter cried:

"Stay where you are, Mr. Damon. No one can reach her now without
danger to himself and her. She can climb up, I think."

Past knot after knot the woman passed, mounting steadily upward,
with a strength that seemed remarkable.

"Come on!" cried Tom to the others. "Don't wait until she gets up.
There isn't time. Come on--the rope will hold you all! Climb up!"

The men in the tossing and bobbing motor boat heard, and at once
began, one after the other, to clamber up the rope. There were five
of them, as could be seen in the glare of the light, and Tom, as he
watched, wondered what they were doing out in the terrific storm at
that early hour of the morning, and with a lone woman.

"Stand by to help her, Koku!" called Ned to the giant.

"I help," was the giant's simple reply, and as the woman's head came
above the rail, over which the rope ran, Koku, leaning forward,
raised her in his powerful arms, and set her carefully on the deck.

"Come into the cabin, please," Ned called to her. "Come in out of
the wet."

"Oh, it seems a miracle that we are saved!" the woman gasped, as,
rain-drenched and wind-tossed, she staggered toward the door which
Tom had opened by means of a lever in the pilot house. The young
inventor had his hands full, manipulating the airship so as to keep
it above the motor boat, and not bring too great a strain on the
rope.

The woman passed into the cabin, which was between the motor room
and the pilot house, and Ned saw her throw herself on her knees, and
offer up a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. Then, springing to her
feet, she cried:

"My husband? Is he safe? Can you save him? Oh, how wonderful that
this airship came in answer to our appeals to Providence. Whose is
it?"

Before Ned got a chance to answer her, as she came to the door of
the motor room, a man's voice called:

"My wife! Is she safe?"

"Yes, here I am," replied the woman, and a moment later the two were
in each other's arms.

"The others; are they safe?" gasped the woman, after a pause.

"Yes," replied the man. "They are coming up the rope. Oh, what a
wonderful rescue! And that giant man who lifted us up on deck! Oh,
do you recall in Africa how we were also rescued by airship--"

"Come on now, I got you!" interrupted the voice of Koku out o