The Master, quite unmindful of the quickening bloodstream down his face and neck, looked sharply—­as if impersonally interested in some problem of ballistics—­at the spinning, gyrating figure that with grotesque contortions plummeted the depths.

Over and over, whirling with outflung arms and legs, dropped the stowaway.  Down though Nissr herself was plunging, he fell faster.  Swiftly his body dwindled, shrinking to a dwarf, an antlike thing, a black dot.  Far below on the steely sea-plain, a tiny bubble of white leaped out, then faded.  That pinpoint of foam was the stowaway’s grave.

“Very good,” approved the Master, unmoved.  He lurched against the rail, as a sudden maneuver of the pilot somewhat flattened out the air-liner’s fall.  The helicopters began to turn, to buzz, to roar into furious activity, seeking to check the plunge.  The major came staggering back.  But quicker than he, “Captain Alden” was at the Master’s side.

“He shot you?” the woman cried, pointing.

“Bah!  A splinter of glass!” And the Master shook off the blood with a twitch of his head.  “That was a neat bull’s-eye you made on him, Captain.  It saves you from punishment for forgetting you were under arrest; for climbing the ladder and coming above-decks.  Yes—­I’ve got to rescind my order.  You’re at liberty.  And—­”

“And I stay with the expedition, sir?” demanded Alden, her hand going out in an involuntary gesture of appeal.  For the first time, she was showing eagerness of a feminine sort.  But she suppressed it, instantly, and stood at attention.  “If I have done you any service, sir, reward me by letting me stay!”

“I will see.  There may be no expedition to stay with.  Now—­”

“Life-belts, sir?  And take to the small planes?” came a voice from the companion-way.  The face of Manderson—­of him who had found the stowaway—­appeared there.  Manderson looked anxious, a trifle pale.  Aft, more figures were appearing.  In spite of the iron discipline of the Legion, signs of disorder were becoming evident.  “We’re hard hit, sir,” Manderson reported.  “Every man for himself, now?  Orders, sir?”

“My orders are, every man back to his post!” cried the Master, his voice a trumpet-call of resolution.  “There’ll be no sauve qui peut, here!” He laid a hand on the butt of his pistol.  “Back, every man of you!”

Came another dull, jarring explosion. Nissr reeled to port.  The Legionaries trickled down the companion-ladders.  From somewhere below a cry rose:  “The aft starboard float—­it’s gone!  And the stabilizer—­”

Confused sounds echoed. Nissr sagged drunkenly, lost headway and slewed off her course, turning slowly in the thin, cold air.  Her propellers had been shut off; all the power of her remaining engines had now been clutched into the helicopter-drive.

The Master, indifferently smearing off the blood from his neck, made his way toward the forward companion.  He had to hold the rail with one hand, for now the metal plates of the observation gallery were sharply canted. Nissr had got wholly out of control, so far as steerage-way was concerned; but the rate of her fall seemed to have been a trifle checked.