But no need to claim was necessary. Above them not more than a hundred feet, it swooped and circled, the first aeroplane the Lost Souls had ever seen, while from it, like a benediction from heaven, descended the familiar:
"Back to back against the mainmast, Held at bay the entire crew."
Completing the circle and rising to an elevation of nearly a thousand feet, they saw an object detach itself directly overhead, fall like a plummet for three hundred feet, then expand into a spread parachute, with beneath i^ like a spider suspended on a web, the form of a man, which last, as it neared the ground, again began to sing:
"Back to back against the mainmast, Held at bay the entire crew."
And then event crowded on event with supremest rapidity. The stub of the candle fell apart, the flaming wick fell into the tiny lake of molten fat, the lake flamed, and the oil-saturated faggots about it flamed. And Henry, landing in the thick of the Lost Souls, blanketing a goodly portion of them under his parachute, in a couple of leaps was beside his friends and kicking the blazing faggots right and left. Only for a second did he desist. This was when the Sun Priest interfered. A right hook to the jaw put that aged confidant of God down on his back, and, while he slowly recuperated and crawled to his feet, Henry slashed clear the lashings that bound Leoncia, Francis, and Torres. His arms were out to embrace Leoncia, when she thrust him away with:
"Quick! There is no time for explanation. Down on your knees to Torres and pretend you are his slave and don't talk Spanish; talk English."
Henry could not comprehend, and, while Leoncia reassured him with her eyes, he saw Francis prostrate himself at the feet of their common enemy.
"Gee!" Henry muttered, as he joined Francis. "Here goes. But it's worse than rat poison."
Leoncia followed him, and all the Lost Souls went down prone before the Capitan Da Vasco who received in their midst celestial messengers direct from the sun. All went down, except the priest, who, mightily shaken, was meditating doing it, when the mocking devil of melodrama in Torres' soul prompted him to overdo his part.
As haughtily as Francis had coached him, he lifted his right foot and placed it down on Henry's neck, incidentally covering and pinching most of his ear.