"Volunteers!" shouted the Master, plunging forward.
Into the fumes and smother, half a dozen men fought their way. From
the bulkheads they snatched down the little fire-grenades. The Master
went first. Bohannan was second, with Rrisa a close third. Leclair in
his forward rush almost stumbled over Alden. The "Captain," masked and
still unrecognized as a woman by any save the Master, was thrust back
from the door by the Celt, as she too tried to enter.
"No, not you!" he shouted. "You, with only one arm--faith, it's worse
than useless! Back, you!" Then he and many plunged into the blazing
engine-room.
Thus they closed with the fire-devil now licking ravenous tongues
about the vitals of _Nissr_.
CHAPTER XIX
HOSTILE COASTS
An hour from that time, the air-liner was drifting sideways at low
altitudes, hardly five hundred feet above the waves. A sad spectacle
she made, her wreckage gilded by the infinite splendors of the sun now
lowering toward the horizon. Her helicopters were droning with all the
force that could be flung into them from the crippled power-plant. Her
propellers--some charred to mere stumps on their shafts--stood starkly
motionless.
Pages:
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195