That communion of eyes lasted but a brief second; then both men turned despairingly to the doomed man trailing behind the plunging plane. They, too, were doomed in that headlong dash, but somehow their plight seemed as nothing compared to his.
O’Connell had not lost his senses. They perceived that with both hands he was fumbling, working at his right hip. Even as they watched, his hand went to his left side in the same peculiar movement. Then they comprehended.
O’Connell was unbuckling his harness. Already he had unclasped the snap buckles that fastened the heavy webbing straps about his thighs; now but one more buckle remained—the one across his chest. He did not look toward the plane; his whole attention was absorbed in his task, exceedingly difficult in that lashing wind, dangling there in space at the end of the cords. But in an instant he would no longer be dangling. The ship would be saved—at a price.
Jim Tyler watched, paralyzed by the horrible fascination of the thing. In another instant O’Connell would have cast himself off from the plane—and from life. His dry throat framed at last an inarticulate sound of protest at the sight of that sacrifice. The wind swept it away unheard.
Burt Minster, too, was watching. The breast buckle came apart. Del O’Connell was free of the harness. He hung there by his hands, and his face turned briefly toward them. A strained, twisted grin was on it.
A pain shot through Jim Tyler’s shoulder; it was a blow from Burt Minster’s heavy fist. The big man was squatting on top of the fuselage.
“Right turn!”
His voice blared in the pilot’s ear, audible even above the thunder of the motor. Jim obeyed automatically. The plane swerved sharply to the right.
As the machine swung around, O’Connell’s body whipped sidewise, no longer directly behind and below the tail. In that instant Burt Minster leaped out into the air, all the strength of his powerful muscles concentrated in the thrust of his legs. His body, its momentum aided by the rush of air, shot through space. He crashed like a plunging bull into the lean, small body of Del O’Connell.