Burt, a little slower, slung a foot over his side of the machine, and with one hand fumbled for the ripcord and dangling ring at the end of it. Tyler nodded.
Del O’Connell, with a quick spring, brought his other foot up out of the cockpit and, clinging with his hands, crouched on the edge of the fuselage. His legs bent more sharply for the leap that would carry him far out into space.
But just then the eyes of Jim Tyler caught a sudden flash of white from the pack on Del’s back. The next instant the great silken parachute whipped out of its confining envelop. Del’s rip-cord had fouled on something inside the cockpit, and his eager jump to the rim had jerked it.
The great spread of cloth billowed open instantly and whisked backward in the grip of the wind. For just an instant Del, entirely unconscious of what had occurred, held his place on the fuselage. Then, like a stone from a catapult, he was whipped off his feet and flung toward the tail of the racing plane.
The open parachute swept into the tail assembly. The tremendous force of the wind ripped it from skirt to vent as it caught. Shroud lines parted like threads. Then the silken cloth wrapped itself about elevators, and several of the shrouds that did not snap became entangled over the point of the balance of the rudder.
O’Connell’s whirling body struck the tail of the machine. Then it swept past, dropping out into space. But the remaining shroud lines were securely held by the rudder. O’Connell’s fall was checked by a bone-jarring jerk. His body dangled below the tail of the plane, swaying in the rush of the wind.
The plane wavered in the air, its flying speed dropping fast under the resistance of the silken cloth whipping backward from the tail assembly, and the drag of the man’s body swinging behind. Jim Tyler opened the throttle full, and thrust the stick forward for a steep glide. The elevators responded. They had been unhurt by the lashing parachute. The nose of the plane turned earthward; its speed increased.
The sudden catastrophe had come before Burt Minster had gone over the side. He drew back in the cockpit and stared over at the figure of Del O’Connell, dragging behind the plane by the precarious strength of a few unsevered shroud lines. As he watched, he caught sight of the white face of his partner, and saw that O’Connell, dazed by the suddenness of the accident and his whip-like snap from the cockpit, was just coming to a realization of what had occurred.
Jim Tyler turned and stared backward, too, and then the eyes of Jim and Burt met. Speech was impossible in the fury of the motor’s roar, but their eyes appealed to each other for help—for some way out. The plane was diving sharply earthward; to check that dive meant losing control of the ship; not to check it meant to crash at terrific speed into the ground. There was no way of getting O’Connell back into the ship; that was utterly impossible.