e that was unfamiliar to Chet. Yet, even then, it was plain that
he was giving instructions, and he repeated familiar words.

"Harkness," Chet heard him say, and, "--Delacouer--_ja!_--Mam'selle
Delacouer!"

Then, leaving the radio, he said, "Put my ship inside the hangar;" and
the pilot, Max, grounded their own ship to allow the men to leap out and
float into the big building the big aircraft in which Schwartzmann had
come.

"Now close the doors!" their leader ordered. "Leave everything as it
was!" And to the pilot he gave added instructions: "There iss no air
traffic here. You will to forty thousand ascend, und you will wait over
this spot." Contemptuously he kicked aside the legs of the bound man
that he might walk back into the cabin.

* * * * *

The take-off was not as smooth as it would have been had Chet's slim
hands been on the controls; this burly one who handled them now was not
accustomed to such sensitivity. But Chet felt the ship lift and lurch,
then settle down to a swift, spiralling ascent. Now he lay still as he
tried to ponder the situation.

"Now what dirty work are they up to?" he asked himself. He had seen a
sullen fury on the dark face of Herr Schwartzmann as he spoke the names
of Walt and Diane into the radio. Chet remembered the look now, and he
struggled vainly with the cords about his wrists. Even a detonite pistol
with its tiny grain of explosive in the end of each bullet would not
check him--not when Walt and Diane were endangered. And the expression
on that heavy, scowling face had told him all too clearly that some real
danger threatened.

But the cords held fast on his swollen wrists. His head was still
throbbing; and even his side, not entirely healed, was adding to the
torment that beat upon him--beat and beat with his pulsing blood--until
the beating faded out into unconsciousness....

Dimly he knew they were soaring still higher as their radio picked up
the warning of an approaching patrol ship; vaguely, he realized that
they descended again to a level of observation. Chet knew in some corner
of his brain that Schwartzmann was watching from an under lookout with a
powerful glass, and he heard his excited command:

"Down--go slowly, down!... They are landing.... They have entered the
hangar. Now, down with it. Max! Down! down!"

* * * * *

The plunging fall of the ship roused Chet from his stupor. He felt the
jolt