As for Captain Alden, he stood there a compact, small figure in his long coat with the rucksack strapped to his shoulders, peering up with the eye of the connoisseur. His smile was of contentment absolute.

"My beauty--ah, my beauty!" he was murmuring.

Then, in the presence of this mighty thing, silence fell on all. The major set hands on hips, blinked, puckered his lips, and silently whistled. His expression was half incredulous, half enthusiastic.

What Alden was thinking revealed itself by the sparkle of his eyes through the holes of the mask behind the goggles. Expressionless though that terribly mutilated face had to remain, you could sense in the man's whole att.i.tude the exultation of the expert ace as he beheld the perfect machine.

The droning of the engines came distinctly to them all, a low, steady, powerful note, beautiful in its steady undertones of strength. Behind the little group, a few involuntary exclamations of astonishment and joy became audible, as some of the Legionaries came into the second enclosure.

Without, blows on metal sharply resounded. The Master smiled again, as he realized his orders were going on with exact precision.

"That's the wireless they're putting out of commission," thought he, glancing at his watch again. "No mere untuning of wave-lengths.

Good, old-fashioned hammer-blows! This station won't work again for a while!"

Bohannan, meantime, was trying to get some general impression of the giant plane. Not all the Master's descriptions of it, to him, had quite prepared him for the reality. Though he well knew all the largest, biggest machines in the world, this stupendous creation staggered him. By comparison with the Handley-Page, the Cap.r.o.ni, the D.H.-4, the Gotha 90-120, the Sikorsky, it spread itself as an eagle spreads beside a pigeon.

It lay in a kind of metallic cradle, almost like a ship ready for launching on its ways. Ahead of it, metal plates stretched away like rails, running toward the lip of the Palisades. Its quadruple floats, each the size of a tugboat and each capable of being exhausted of air, const.i.tuted a potential lifting-force of enclosed vacuums that very largely offset the weight of the mechanism. It was still a heavier-than-air machine, but the balance could be made nearly perfect. And the six helicopters, whose cylindrical, turbine-like drums gleamed with metallic glitters--three on each side along the fuselage--could at will produce an absolutely static condition of lift or even make the plane hover and soar quite vertically.

There the monster lay, outstretching its enormous s.e.xtuple wings, each wing with an area of 376 by 82.5 feet. The non-inflammable celluloid surfaces shone white as fresh-cut ivory, clean, smooth, unbreakable.

The plane reminded one of some Brobdingnagian dragon-fly, resting for flight, shimmering with power as it poised for one swift leap aloft into the night.

Bohannan, still a bit confused, noted the absence of any exhaust from the speeding engines. This, too, gave a sense of vast, self-contained power. He saw stupendous propeller-blades, their varnished surfaces flicking out high-lights as the incandescents struck them. Motionless these propellers were; but something in their tense, clean sweep told of the raging cyclone to which they could whip the air, once the spinning engines should be clutched in on their shafts.

The captain's eyes wandered over the whole enormous construction, towering there above him. He saw rows of lighted windows, each cased in shining metal; a V-pointed pilot-house--the same where the still figure had dropped over the sill of the open window--a high-raised rudder of artful curve, vast as the broadside of a barn; railed galleries running along the underbody of the fuselage, between the floats and far aft of them.

Everything gleamed and flickered with bright metal, varnish, snowy celluloid. The body of the machine looked capable of housing twice as many men as the Legion numbered. But everything, after all, was quite shrunk by the overpowering sweep of the wings. These dwarfed the fast-gathering group that stood peering up at them, like pygmies under the pinions of the fabled roc in Sinbad the Sailor's story.

These stupendous wings, the captain now saw, were not braced together by hampering struts and wires, but seemed cantilevered into position, giving a clean run to the structure, great simplicity, and the acme of mechanical beauty. This giant bird of heaven lay in its nest, free of pattern, powerful beyond any air-mechanism ever built by man, almost a living thing, on whose back its captors might ride aloft defying man and nature, to whatsoever goal they chose.

"Everything is ready," said the Master. "That is quite obvious. Let us get aboard now, with no further delay, and be off!"

He drew a little notebook from his pocket, took a pencil, and faced the gathering group inside the second stockade.

"Stow your equipment," he directed "according to your orders. Ten minutes will be enough for you to unload your machine-guns and all gear, each in the a.s.signed s.p.a.ce. Bring out all the sleeping men and lay them down along the stockade, here. Injure no man. Valdez, are the take-off gates, over the Palisade, correctly opened?"

A dark, thin man saluted, as he answered with a Spanish accent:

"Yes, sir. Everything is ready, sir."

"Very well. Now, all to work! And then, each to his place, in engine-room, cabins, or however and where a.s.signed. Come, come!"

As the men trailed up the gangplank, that steeply rose to the sliding door in the fuselage, the Master checked them on his list. Not one was absent. He shut the notebook with a snap, and slid it back into his pocket.

"This goes on well," he commented to the major. "So far, we are within three minutes, eighteen seconds, of schedule."

The little group of four stood waiting, watching, while the others carried out all orders, aboard. There was no hesitation, no confusion.

Each had already learned the exact plan of the airship. Each knew precisely where every door led, what each pa.s.sageway meant; each understood perfectly his own post and what to do there.

Two by two, Legionaries came down the gangplank, bearing limp bodies.

These they laid in a row along the stockade, till seventeen had acc.u.mulated. No more came.

A figure appeared in the sliding doorway, and saluted.

"The last sleeper is out, sir," he reported.

The Master nodded, and gestured to his three companions. The group of four ascended the sharp tilt of the plank and entered the airship. As they did so, Legionaries hoisted the plank aboard, with its tackle, and lashed it to the waiting chocks. Others could be heard, in the penetralia of the vast structure, coming, going, busily at work.

The entrance door slid shut. A bolt shot home. All the Legion was now aboard, and communication with the ground had been broken.

The four men found themselves in a brightly lighted corridor that led directly across the fuselage to a similar door on the other side. This corridor was of some metal, painted a glossy white. Doors opened out of it, on either hand. Its length was just a few inches over forty-two feet. Half-way along it, a wider corridor crossed it at right angles--the main pa.s.sage of the ship.

The Master led the way toward this median corridor. His tall, big-shouldered figure swung along, triumphant, impressive in the long coat, dominant and free. Followed by the other three, he turned to the left, forward of the ship.

The main corridor, like the other, was flanked by doors. Two or three stood open, giving glimpses of comfortable staterooms. The men's footfalls sounded with softened tread on a strip of thick, brown carpet that made pleasant contrast with the gleaming white walls.

Light from frosted gla.s.s circles, flush with walls and ceiling, made the corridor bright as day.

The Master walked with the confident precision of one who already had pa.s.sed that way a score of times. He opened the third door on the left--it slid into the wall, instead of swinging, thus economizing s.p.a.ce--and all entered what was obviously the main saloon of the giant plane.

This saloon measured seventeen feet six inches, from corridor to windows, and twenty-nine fore-and-aft. It was furnished with a center-table, book-cases, easy-chairs, two commodious sofa-lockers, and had an excellent carpet. Bohannan noted a Victrola, with many records.

Like all parts of the ship, its lighting was splendid. Well-curtained windows gave it a homelike air. At first glance, one would have thought oneself in a rather luxurious private house; but second inspection showed all possible construction and furnishings were of aluminum alloy, of patterns designed to cut weight to the lowest minimum.

The walls bore lightly framed photographs of men famous in the annals of flying, from Santos-Dumont and the Wrights to Gruynemer and Nosworthy; also pictures of famous machines--the Spad, Bristol Fighter, Sopwith Pup, 120-135, and others. More conspicuous than any of these was a framed copy of the International Air Commission's latest condensed rules.

Signs of recent occupancy were not wanting. An extinct cigar lay on the carpet, where it had fallen from the mouth of some airman swiftly overtaken by sleep. The table bore an open cigar-box, several packs of cigarettes with loose "f.a.gs" scattered round, and a number of champagne bottles.

Two of these were opened; one had been emptied. The other had lost part of its contents. Several champagne gla.s.ses stood on the table, and one lay on its side, where perhaps a falling hand had overset it.

In one of the gla.s.ses, a few last, vagrant little bubbles were still rising from the tall, hollow stem.

"Hm!" grunted the Master contemptuously. "Fools! Well--there'll be no alcohol aboard this craft!" He loosened the buckles of his rucksack, and cast the burden on one of the sofa-lockers. The others did as much.

"Shall we stow the gear in our cabins?" asked Bohannan, gesturing at the doors that led off the saloon.

"Not yet," answered the Master, glancing at the chronometer that hung beside the air-rules. "Time enough to get settled, later. Every second counts, now. We're due to start in seven minutes, you know. Rrisa will attend to all this. We three have got to be getting forward to the pilot-house."

Bohannan nodded.

"Let's have some air in here, anyhow," said he, turning toward one of the windows. "This place is d.a.m.ned hot!"

"We'll need all the heat, soon," the Master commented. "At a few thousand feet, the engine-exhaust through those radiators won't be any too much. Forward!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE EAGLE OF THE SKY