me time there came a jerk that dropped Dick's plane a hundred
feet, and flung him violently against the rim of the cockpit.

Another followed. By drops of a hundred feet at a time, Dick was being
hauled down into the darkness underneath him.

It rushed up at him. One moment he was suspended upon the rim of it,
seeing the moon and stars above him; the next he had been plunged into
utter blackness. Blackness more intense than anything that could be
conceived--soundless blackness, that was the added horror of it.
Blackness of Luke Evans's contriving, but none the less fearful on
that account!

And yet, as Dick was jerked slowly downward, slowly a pale visibility
began to diffuse itself underneath. The black cloud was beginning to
roll away. The luminous lines began to fade, and in place of them
appeared little leaping tongues of fire. In front of him Dick saw Luke
Evans's form begin to pattern itself upon the darkness. He saw the
form move sidewise, and caught at Luke's arm as he was about to hurl
another gas bomb. "No!" he shouted--and heard no sound come from his
lips.

* * * * *

Luke understood. He seemed to be replacing the bomb in the rack.
Beneath them now, as they were jerked downward, were fantastic swirls
of black mist, and, at the bottom, a pit of fire that was slowly
coming into visibility.

Dick uttered a cry of horror! Five hundred feet below his plane he saw
the dim forms of his flight, still bunched together, noses almost
touching. And they were dropping straight into that flaming furnace
of ruin underneath, which was growing clearer every instant.

Down, jerk by jerk. Down! The black cloud was fast dispersing from the
ground. The flight were hardly a thousand feet above the fire. Down--a
long jerk that one! Once more! The flames leaped up hungrily about the
doomed airships. Cries of mad horror broke from Dick's lips as he
witnessed the destruction of ships and men.

He could see almost clearly now. The twelve ships, still retaining
their nose-to-nose formation, were in the very heart of the fire.
Spurts of exploding gasoline thrust their white tongues upward. There
was only one consolation: for the doomed men, death must have come
practically instantaneously.

From where he hung, Dick could feel the fierce heat of the flames
below. In front of him, old Luke Evans sat in his cockpit like one
petrified. He was feebly fumbling at his camera-box, as if he had some
ide