“A devil of a place!” he exclaimed, his blood up for a fight, but all circumstances baffling him.  A very different man, this, from the calm, impersonal victim of ennui at Niss’rosh, or even from the unmoved individual when the liner had first swooped away from New York.  His eye was sparkling now, his face was pale and drawn with anger; and the blood-soaked cotton and collodion gave a vivid touch of color to the ensemble.  That the Master had emotions, after all, was evident.  Obvious, too, was the fact these emotions were now fully aroused.  “What a devil of a place!  No way to get at those dog-sons, and they can lie there and wait for Nissr to break up!”

“Yes, my Captain, or else starve us where we lie!” the lieutenant put in.  “Or wait for thirst and fever to do the work.  Then—­rich plunder for the sons of theft!”

“Ah, Leclair, but we’re not going to stay here, for any such contingency!” exclaimed the chief, and turned toward the door.  “Come, en avant!  Forward, Leclair!”

“My Captain!  You cannot charge an entrenched enemy like that, by swimming a heavy surf, with nothing but revolvers in hand!”

“Can’t, eh?  Why not?”

“The rules of war—­”

“To Hell with the rules of war!” shouted the Master, for the first time in years breaking into profanity.  “Are you with me, or are you—­”

“Sir, do not say that word!” cried the Frenchman, reddening ominously.  “Not even from you can I accept it!”

The Master laughed again, and strode out into the main corridor, with Leclair close behind him.

“Men!” he called, his voice blaring a trumpet-call to action.  “Volunteers for a shore-party to clean out that kennel of dogs!”

None held back.  All came crowding into the spacious corridor, its floor now laterally level but sloping toward the stern, as Nissr’s damaged aft-floats had filled and sunk.

“Revolvers and lethal pistols!” he ordered.  “And knives in belts!  Come on!”

Up the ladder they swarmed to the take-off gallery.  Their feet rang and clattered on the metal rounds.  Other than that, a, strange silence filled the giant air-liner.  The engines now lay dead. Nissr was motionless, save for the pitch and swing of the surf that tossed her; but forward she could no longer go.

As the men came up to the top gallery, the hands of the setting sun reached out and seized them with red ardor.  The radiance was half blinding, from that sun and from light reflected by the heavily running waves, all white-caps to shore.  On both aileron-tips, the machine-guns were spitting intermittently, worked by crews under the major and Ferrara, the Italian ace.

“Cease firing!” ordered the Master.  “Simonds, you and Prisrend deal out the lethal guns.  Look alive, now!”

Sheltering themselves from the patter of slugs behind stanchions and bulwarks, the Legionaries waited.  The sea wind struck them with hot intensity; the sun, now almost down, flung its river of blood from ship to horizon, all dancing in a shimmer of heat.