Cries
echoed from her, from the great stockade.
The Master gave her all the lift the farthest wrench of the levers
would thrust on her. The gate was almost shut now--would she clear it?
Below, track, earth, everything was spinning in and in. Ahead, above,
yawned vastnesses. The Master could no longer see the gate. A second
of taut thrill--
_Crash_!
The _Nissr_ quivered, staggered, yawed away. The forward starboard
float had struck. A faint yell rose as someone, hurled backward by the
shattered _debris_ of the gate, plunged down the cliff.
For half a second, the giant plane reeled over the abyss. Her rush and
fury for that half-second threatened to plunge her, a mangled, flaming
wreck, hundreds of feet down on the black, waiting rocks below the
Palisades.
But engine-power and broad wings, skill of the hand at the levers, and
the good fortune that watches over bold men, buoyed her again.
Suddenly she lifted. Up at a dizzy angle she sped.
A thing of life, quivering, sentient, unleashed, the gigantic Eagle
of the Sky--now in heroic flight toward the greatest venturing ever
conceived by the brain of man--steadied herself, lifted on the wings
of darkness, and, freed from her last bonds, leaped quivering and
triumphant into the night.
Pages:
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101