“Everything is ready,” said the Master.  “That is quite obvious.  Let us get aboard now, with no further delay, and be off!”

He drew a little notebook from his pocket, took a pencil, and faced the gathering group inside the second stockade.

“Stow your equipment,” he directed “according to your orders.  Ten minutes will be enough for you to unload your machine-guns and all gear, each in the assigned space.  Bring out all the sleeping men and lay them down along the stockade, here.  Injure no man.  Valdez, are the take-off gates, over the Palisade, correctly opened?”

A dark, thin man saluted, as he answered with a Spanish accent: 

“Yes, sir.  Everything is ready, sir.”

“Very well.  Now, all to work!  And then, each to his place, in engine-room, cabins, or however and where assigned.  Come, come!”

As the men trailed up the gangplank, that steeply rose to the sliding door in the fuselage, the Master checked them on his list.  Not one was absent.  He shut the notebook with a snap, and slid it back into his pocket.

“This goes on well,” he commented to the major.  “So far, we are within three minutes, eighteen seconds, of schedule.”

The little group of four stood waiting, watching, while the others carried out all orders, aboard.  There was no hesitation, no confusion.  Each had already learned the exact plan of the airship.  Each knew precisely where every door led, what each passageway meant; each understood perfectly his own post and what to do there.

Two by two, Legionaries came down the gangplank, bearing limp bodies.  These they laid in a row along the stockade, till seventeen had accumulated.  No more came.

A figure appeared in the sliding doorway, and saluted.

“The last sleeper is out, sir,” he reported.

The Master nodded, and gestured to his three companions.  The group of four ascended the sharp tilt of the plank and entered the airship.  As they did so, Legionaries hoisted the plank aboard, with its tackle, and lashed it to the waiting chocks.  Others could be heard, in the penetralia of the vast structure, coming, going, busily at work.

The entrance door slid shut.  A bolt shot home.  All the Legion was now aboard, and communication with the ground had been broken.

The four men found themselves in a brightly lighted corridor that led directly across the fuselage to a similar door on the other side.  This corridor was of some metal, painted a glossy white.  Doors opened out of it, on either hand.  Its length was just a few inches over forty-two feet.  Half-way along it, a wider corridor crossed it at right angles—­the main passage of the ship.

The Master led the way toward this median corridor.  His tall, big-shouldered figure swung along, triumphant, impressive in the long coat, dominant and free.  Followed by the other three, he turned to the left, forward of the ship.