“Now for something doing”--Sin to Dolores. “Take a bet with me. Will they beat the storm or the storm beat them?” She, however, was intent on a repeated question: “You are sure, Your Lowness, that they are safe in trusting to helium?” “It is safe to say that they _think_ they are.” His reply was abstracted. After searching the scene intently, he turned again to the telephone. “I have keen long-distance eyes, trained to pierce the Plutonian shore, but I can’t see a blur of that imp Okeh. I must wireless him a reminder of where personal devils go that get too impersonal.” He spared an apology to Dolores. “Don’t be hurt if I look a bit absent-minded at times. You are so unselfish that you won’t, I am sure, when you remember how much other, if less fair, fiends, often need an inspiriting thought from me.” As the pilot drove the great dirigible straight at the sky-scowl contesting its right-of-way, the winds hurled at it bank after bank of inky clouds. Huddled against the blasts behind the forward wind glass, the fifty or more passengers showed with as many variations their heirship to the flesh. The beautiful Mrs. Cabot could be seen loosing the hold on her arm of her French suitor and staggering across the deck to where her husband stood apart. Despite his concerned look, he tried to reassure her. All showed relief when the captain appeared among them, his little daughter by the hand, and laughed at the idea of danger. His gestures pointed the fact that the storm was passing well over their trig craft. “Confident little monarchs of the air, eh?” Satan’s chuckle announced that his attention, too, was on the pool play. Before Dolores could formulate the plea commanded by her fears, he returned to the telephone with a curt command that increased her uneasiness. “Now, Cyclops, blast them with a look! Strike at the heart of their conceit. Show them the noncombustibility of helium. Punish them for flaunting the control of the Prince of the Power of the Air! Strike--_strike_!” He lurched back to the rail; with the interested minister and the dismayed girl-shade, leaned far out that he might miss no resultant detail of the electric storm due. And straightway, from out the tumbled mass of blackness flashed a three-forked streak of light. Directly at the great gas bag it struck; with each prong of the fork pierced the gold-beater’s skin. Next second, from three of the separated safety compartments, fluttered fiery flags. Wounded, the great beetle strove on against the odds of flames licking its envelope body with avid tongues. Soon the captain realized the futility of any race against time along the unmarked course of the upper air. The powerful engines stopped. The propellers ceased to revolve. The liner wavered in mid-air, as shown when the streamers of smoke ceased to trail out behind and gradually straightened toward the cloud bank.