Other shouts echoed thinly in the rarefied, high air. The climber laughed with savage mockery.
"I've done for you!" he howled exultantly. "Fuel-tanks afire—you'll all go to Hell blazing when they explode! But first—I'll get the boss pirate of the outfit—"
Swiftly the clutching figure scrabbled in over the rail, dropped to the metal plates of the take-off—now slanting steeply down and forward—and broke into a staggering run directly toward the gallery where stood Bohannan and the Master.
At the little ladder-housing sounded a warning shout. The head and shoulders of Captain Alden became visible there. In Alden's right hand glinted a service-revolver.
But already the attacker—the stowaway—had snatched a pistol from his belt. And, as he plunged at full drive down the take-off platform, he thrust the pistol forward.
Almost at point-blank range, howling maledictions, he hurled a murderous fusillade at the Master of the now swiftly falling Eagle of the Sky.
CHAPTER XVIII
"CAPTAIN ALDEN" MAKES GOOD
The crash of shattered glass mingled with the volley flung by the murderously spitting automatic of the stowaway. From the forward companion, at the top of the ladder, "Captain Alden" fired—one shot only.
No second shot was needed. For the attacker, grunting, lunged forward, fell prone, sprawled on the down-slanting plates of the take-off platform. His pistol skidded away, clattering, over the buffed metal.