That the risk must be taken was a foregone conclusion, but how to keep the engines running at that high speed without attention--for it was evident that no man could live for many minutes in the poisonous fumes--was a more difficult problem. This was solved, however, by the second engineer volunteering to go below with a life-line attached, so that he could be hauled up to the deck when giddiness came on. More than once this gallant petty officer had to be pulled up choking and exhausted. He risked instant death from the explosion of the gas from the leaking and overheated pipes and engines, as well as suffocation from the fumes, but he stuck to his post, returning again and again into the poisonous atmosphere. Darkness was gradually settling over the sea, and the flickering light of the Morse lamp--still asking for a reply--made yellow streaks on the wet fore-deck. Presently a faint speck of light blinked amid the dark mass of the airship, but almost instantly went out, and for some time nothing further was seen. Barely three miles of heaving sea separated the two ships when the bright glare of a Very's light, fired from a pistol, soared into the air. A cheer broke from the dark figures on the deck of the M.L., and a message of hope was eagerly flashed back. The last knot seemed a voyage in itself, but eventually the great dark mass of the still floating envelope loomed up ahead, and almost instantly the clang of the engine-room telegraph, shutting off the leaky engine, gave relief to the plucky second engineer, who had retained consciousness and control through that dreadful twenty minutes by frequently filling his aching lungs above the hatchway. The sea around was a mass of tangled wires, in which the mast and rigging of the M.L. was the first to become entangled. Near approach was impossible, so orders were given to lower away the boat. The sturdy little steel-built life-boat splashed into the sea alongside, one minute rising on a wave high above the deck-line and the next disappearing into the dark void below. Figures slid down the miniature falls to man her and the next minute were pulling through the tangled wreckage to where the beam of the M.L.'s searchlight showed six airmen clinging to a floating but upturned cupola. Numbed with the cold, they fell rather than jumped into the boat as it was pulled alongside. One was insensible and the others were too far gone to utter a word. Nothing but the wonderful vitality necessary to the airman as to the sailor had enabled them to hold on in that bitter cold for over two hours after eight hours in the air.