The
altimeter needle ceased its drop, trembled and even rose _.275_
degrees.
"God! If we only had an ounce more power!" burst out the major, his
mouth mumbling the loose ends of that flamboyant mustache. The Master
remained quite impassive, and made no answer. Bohannan reddened,
feeling that the chief's silence had been another rebuff. And on,
on drifted _Nissr_, askew, up-canted, with the pitiless sunlight
of approaching evening in every detail revealing--as it slanted in,
almost level, over the far-heaving infinitudes of the Atlantic--the
ravages wrought by flame.
Bohannan could not long be silent. The exuberance of his nature burst
forth with a half-defiant:
"If _I_ were in charge, which I'm not, I'd stop those damned
helicopters, let her down, turn what power we've got into the
remaining propellers, and taxi ashore!"
"And probably sink, or break up in the surf, on the beach, there!"
curtly rejoined the Master. "Ah! _What_?"
His binoculars checked their sweep along the coast, which in its
absolute barrenness looked a place of death for whatever might have
life there.
"You see something, _mon capitaine?_" asked Leclair, blowing smoke
from his cigarette.
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