he end of the track. The Master laughed again,
with the wind whipping at his hair. "Full speed ahead!" he shouted
into the telephone.

The _Nissr_ leaped into a swifter course. Then all at once she skidded
clear of the track, slanted upward, breasted the air. Her searchlight
blazed. All along her flanks, fire-jets spangled the night. Cries
echoed from her, from the great stockade.

The Master gave her all the lift the farthest wrench of the levers
would thrust on her. The gate was almost shut now--would she clear it?

Below, track, earth, everything was spinning in and in. Ahead, above,
yawned vastnesses. The Master could no longer see the gate. A second
of taut thrill--

_Crash_!

The _Nissr_ quivered, staggered, yawed away. The forward starboard
float had struck. A faint yell rose as someone, hurled backward by the
shattered _debris_ of the gate, plunged down the cliff.

For half a second, the giant plane reeled over the abyss. Her rush and
fury for that half-second threatened to plunge her, a mangled, flaming
wreck, hundreds of feet down on the black, waiting rocks below the
Palisades.

But engine-power and broad wings, skill of the hand at the levers, and
the good fortune that watches over bold men, buoyed her again.

Suddenly she lifted. Up at a dizzy angle she sped.

A thing of life, quivering, sentient, unleashed, the gigantic Eagle
of the Sky--now in heroic flight toward the greatest venturing ever
conceived by the brain of man--steadied herself, lifted on the wings
of darkness, and, freed from her last bonds, leaped quivering and
triumphant into the night.

CHAPTER IX

EASTWARD HO!

Not all the stern discipline that had been enforced by the
Master--discipline already like a second nature to this band of
adventurous men--could quite prevent a little confusion on board the
Eagle of the Sky.

As the huge machine crashed, plunged, staggered, then righted herself
and soared aloft, shouts echoed down the corridors, shots crackled
from the lower gallery and from a few open ports.

At sound of them, and of faint, far cries from the Palisades, with
a futile spatter of pistol-and rifle-fire, the Master frowned. This
intrusion of disorder lay quite outside his plans. He had hoped for a
swift and quiet getaway. Complications had been introduced. Under his
breath he muttered something as he manipulated the controls.

The major, laughing a bit wildly, leaned from the shattered window and
let driv