"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.
By the way Nissr was thumping her floats on the bottom, she seemed about to break up. But, undismayed, the Legionaries armed themselves, girt on their war-gear and, cool-disciplined under fire, waited the order to leap into the sea.