Death is the mortgage on life. John Cabot’s revolt against payment showed in his face. Craven impulses clutched him. At his ear were the lips of the Master Insinuator. Facile fingers seemed to aid his with the parachute buckles. Yet he had seen himself in the pilot’s contempt. He was putting up a fight. His life-long habit of self-respect was strong. The pilot was father to a motherless child--a girl. He should be saved. With the Thing which had attacked him--the fiend called Fear--John grappled. His knees shook, his jaw sagged, his eyes bulged from the fetid suggestions which, evidently, were gassing his will. If the pilot went down with the air-craft, he never could tell. Dolores, too, shook with fear. She knew what John did not know--just who was opposing him. Indignation over the unequal struggle steadied her; cleared her thoughts. Why was all the power given to sin and none to rightness? By what method had the Foul Fiend projected his spirit to Earth to slay the courage of the man she would have suffered any death to save? Surely, what could be done for evil purposes could be done for good! Why was will given to woman if not to augment the will of man--why her mite of strength if not to incite greater strength? John needed her. From fear lest he fail was born determination that he win. He was a good and great man, John Cabot. He had lived aright and deserved so to die. The hate of Hell was not stronger than the love of her heart. What The Destroyer had done, she--John’s savior--also must do. Moved beyond realization of the spaces between them, Dolores sprang to her feet and sounded into the upper spaces the vibrant chord of inspiration: “_John, be love-worthy!_” Regardless of the astonished stares directed her way, she saw in the mercurized pool that he bent his head as if listening--that his lips moved. She seized the telephone which Satan had used in communicating with the control platform. To the voice that answered she commanded: “Get a record of what he said--I _must_ know what he said!” Lifted out of herself by her success, she leaned over the balustrade and willed that he should win. And as she waited the battle on deck was fought to its finish. Self-mastered, John brushed from his ears the insinuations that had tempted him; controlled the fingers fumbling with the buckles; turned back the feet struggling toward the rail. As the helium from the last compartments waved skyward the flames of the dirigible’s final support, he stripped off the life-saving jacket and forced it upon the pilot. His insistence clearly was in the name of that girl-child who would be orphaned should her father desert her for a scruple. He urged his protesting fellow-human to the rail; helped him over-side. In magnificent calm he watched the silken folds of the parachute spread open under their burden and begin a gentle, oceanward descent.