No slightest move was made to fight the fire above. Evidently an order to abandon ship had been passed. Officers and crew busied themselves with such life-saving apparatus as had been provided against so unlikely a contingency. Gas was turned into the baby blimps carried by the dirigible in lieu of life-boats. Outward they were swung. On deck the hapless humans could be seen struggling toward posts of vantage, fighting back their dearest and best, forgetting to pray in the panic of this conflagration a thousand feet above the comparative safety of the sea. A refractory engine might have been coped with. An explosion of the hydrogen gas used in earlier ships of air would have been understood and the worst been over in one fatal blast. But this slow, gruesome bonfire of the helium on which they had relied, these æon-long minutes jeopardizing the primal, inalienable right---- The deck was beginning to sag. Two of the aërial life-boats had been swung downward and loaded with women and the ship’s only listed child--the captain’s motherless daughter. Like bubbles, they were given to the mercies of the air. The observation spread that there would not be room in the basket of the last baby-blimp for all who remained. An under-officer started to pass out the suits which were parachutes and life-preservers combined--suits calculated to lower one through a quarter-mile of atmosphere and provide support upon the surface of the sea. Came realization that there were not enough of the parachutes to go around. Self-first madness gained control. A battle for possession of the safety devices began. The spirit-girl, watching this spectacle from the perspective of Gehenna, grew faint. “Oh, I can’t endure to look a moment more!” Shuddering, she sank back from sight of the catastrophe. But she felt the hands torn from her eyes and heard a sword-sharp command. “Can’t? You’ve _got_ to look to the end!” The ferocity with which His Highness forced her to the rail ended in an anticipatory chuckle as he saw that the focus of the incredible reflectors had narrowed upon the imperiled passengers. There was Catherine Cabot, already equipped with a parachute, crowding forward to board the last of the blimp-boats. There was the Marquis d’Elie, checked in his regardless struggle for a life-preserver and restrained in the grip of a couple of sailors by the captain’s orders. And there was John Cabot, standing to one side, calmer than the rest, despite the dread realization on his face of the fact that there would not be escape for all. A place had been saved for Catherine in the boat. She did not need the parachute suit. John saw and his face showed inner contention. If he was to stand back from the boat, should he not have the chance of that superfluous life-preserver? A moment longer he stood irresolute, confusedly brushing a hand across his forehead. As if to shut out some sinister suggestion, he turned up his ulster collar.