m. As _Nissr_
slowly turned, a trap opened in the bottom of her lower gallery,
almost directly between the two forward vacuum-floats, and down sped a
little landing nacelle or basket at the end of a fine steel cable.

Swiftly the electric winch dropped the nacelle, containing three men.
It slowed, at their command, through the phone that led up the wire.
With hardly a jar, the basket landed on the roof.

The men jumped out, made fast their tackles to Captain Alden's plane
there, leaped in again and signaled: "Hoist away!"

With noiseless speed the winch gathered in the cable. Up swooped the
nacelle. As it cleared the roof, _Nissr_ purred forward, slid away,
gathered speed over the city where already the alarm had been given.

In four minutes the men had safely landed in the lower gallery once
more, and the plane was being hoisted by davits and made fast on the
upper platform, known as the take-off, which served as a runway for
planes leaving the ship or alighting thereon.

Over the light-spangled city the giant air-liner gathered way.
Three or four searchlights had already begun trying to pick her
up. Quiverings of radiance reached out for her, felt into the void,
whirled like cosmic spokes. The Brooklyn Navy Yard whipped the
upper air for her. Down on Sandy Hook, a slim spear of light stabbed
questingly through the night. Then all at once the monster light on
Governor's Island caught her, dazzling into the Master's eyes.

He only smiled, as he sheered eastward, dropped East River behind and
unloosed the Sky-eagle's course above Brooklyn.

"Just a little fireworks, as a send-off, Major," said he, notching the
speed ahead, ever ahead, till a whipping gale began to beat in at the
broken pane. "They got word of it pretty quick, eh? I suppose they'll
send up a few planes after us."

"_After_ us, yes!" exulted the major. "Faith, they'll be after us, all
right--a devil of a long way after!"

To this the Master gave no answer, but signaled Auchincloss in the
engine-room for full speed. Now a subtle tremor possessed the
vast fabric, mistress of the upper spaces and the night. The
close-compacted lights beneath commenced to sprinkle out into tenuous
dots. The tiny blazing fringe of Coney burned a moment very far
below, then slid away, under the glass flooring. Still heading
sharply upward, with altimeter needle steadily mounting, with the cold
becoming ever greater, the liner flung herself out boldly over the jet
plai