e inventor rapidly handed
out the guns.

In the meanwhile the ship was slowly settling toward the ground. The
captain hoped to get low enough to escape the onward rush of the big
birds, but he had counted without the anger of the eagles. They thought
the airship was a rival in the realms of space and were determined to
destroy it.

On and on they came in spite of the number among them that were killed.
Every one on the ship, except Washington, who had to attend to the
engines, was firing. The birds never stopped or swerved from their
course.

Then with a rush and roar, a flapping of wings that sounded like
thunder, and shrill cries and screams that almost drowned the noise of
the guns, the eagles surrounded the _Monarch_. They struck at it with
their talons. They opened wide their sharp beaks and snapped at the wood
and iron.

Some of the fierce birds even attacked the men, and boys, and were
beaten off with the butts of the rifles. Others of the eagles rose
higher in the air and struck at the oiled silk bag. At first the
yielding surface offered no resistance and was not damaged. Then one
fierce bird, with wide-opened beak, struck at the thin cloth and tore a
hole in it as large as a man's hand.

The sudden settling of the airship told that something was wrong. Then
the professor, glancing aloft, saw what had happened, and hastened to
his helper.

"Quick, Washington!" he shouted. "Start the gas generator at full speed!
We must pump lots of the gas in to keep us afloat! We are in great
danger!"

"Why not try the machine gun on the eagles?" shouted Jack.

"Good idea!" exclaimed the inventor. "You two boys work it!"

At last the eagles, alarmed by the number killed, and frightened by the
noise of the guns and the shots, halted in their rushes at the airship.
Some of the wounded ones wheeled away. Then others followed until,
finally, the whole colony of birds sailed off.

"There they go!" cried Jack.

"Yes, but I fear too late to do us any good," spoke the professor. "The
airship is slowly settling."

"Can't it be fixed?" asked Mark.

"I suppose I could let it down to earth and patch up the hole, but I
fear to do so," answered the inventor. "The _Monarch_ is not under
control, and if I attempt to make a landing I may smash her all to
pieces. She may settle down until within a few hundred feet of the earth
and then plunge like a meteor. We would all be killed then."

"Is there no other way?" asked Jack.