The stars were gold and silver overhead in the vast dark vault, and it seemed to Ronny that their tangled and glittering patterns were dragged slowly across up there, like a remote panorama for how many human eyes below them, raised in agony and mute endurance. Only decoration, after all. He must have dozed again, hanging by the other elbow, cheek almost in the water, for presently he started out of oblivion with a hand on his shoulder. It was Bill, his voice low and humble. “Look here, buddy,” he said slowly and with difficulty, “we’ll have to look out. They’ve begun to slip off. Mrs. Cargill’s wire keeps coming unfastened and your father went down once. Coming up with him I hit my head a bit. Would you stick around and watch them while I catch my breath?” “Hurt bad, Bill?” Ronny whispered anxiously. “Here, hang on to this edge. Hook your elbow over. Take your time, old man. I’ll be on the job.” He swam slowly down the side, catching here and there at a foot. “Don’t mind. It’s me,” he said hastily. He counted the dark heads and shoulders out of the ghostly foam. One, Colonel Kinney; two, Mrs. Kinney; three, Gloria; four, his fa---- that head disappeared even as he looked. Instantly he dived, groping downward in the strangling, rushing depths. There was only water in his frantic reaching fingers. Then he felt hair, a shoulder, caught at a thrashing arm. They came to the surface together, staring into each other’s shadowy faces, gasping. “Dad,” Ronny whispered in agony, “did the wire come off? You must have let go. For heaven’s sake, be careful. You can’t tell when----” For a moment longer the bulk of Andrew Burgess hung and shook a little in the dimness. “Thanks--old boy,” he said then. “Guess I wasn’t holding on tight enough. Yet hanging on--hanging on’s--not much worth while.” “Hush, Dad. Don’t.” Ronny whispered. “They’ll hear you. Think how we’ll talk about this when we get back. Just think of the experience of it.” His father said nothing. Ronny hung and watched the stars and tried not to think of those boiling black depths he had encountered, or of the queer tone in his father’s voice, or of hot, yellow scrambled eggs. The wind played three distinct wailing notes among the wires, high when the plane was tossed higher on a crest, low and humming in the hollows. The jerk and ache along his arms helped to keep him alert now. He hoped that Bill would be all right. Then Mrs. Kinney cried out, either in a doze or waking from it, and Ronny ached with pity for her, because she sounded like a frightened child trying hard to be good. Ronny could hear the patient fatherly drone of Colonel Kinney’s voice, trying to console her. His own father changed his position restlessly, and then Gloria, in one of those restless moments which passed among them all like a long shudder. The night crawled on.