The "Golden Hind," inclined at an angle of sixty degrees, was dropping slowly but surely. With her remaining motors running all out she was unable to overcome the pull of gravity. Even as she dropped, her progress towards her goal was maintained at a rate of a bare five miles an hour above and against that of the wind. Every man on board was holding on like grim death. With the floor as steep as the roof of a house there was nothing to be done but hold on. The ballonets were practically empty save the four or five for’ard ones. The propellers were now virtually helices--whirling screws that strove valiantly but unavailingly to lift the huge bulk of the airship in an almost vertical direction. Should the motors fail to function, then the "Golden Hind" would drop like a stone. As it was she was falling surely and slowly. Already officers and men had donned their inflated indiarubber lifebelts. There was not the slightest sign of panic. The men, although keenly disappointed at failure within sight of success, were joking with each other. "Stand by to jump, all hands," shouted Fosterdyke. "Keep clear of the raffle, and you’ll be as right as rain. There are half a dozen vessels within a couple of miles of us." Some of the men slid along the sloping alley-way to the side doors. Others tore away the large celluloid windows in the cabins and motor-rooms, so as to be able to jump clear directly the fuselage touched the water. The two chums had drawn themselves through the windows of the navigation-room and were standing on the blunt bows and steadying themselves by the tension wires running from the normal top of the nacelle to the underside of the envelope. With the four motors running to the last the "Golden Hind" dropped into the sea. Her projecting envelope was the first to come into contact with the water. The ballonets, practically air-tight compartments, checked the downward movement, while the whole of the hitherto inclined bulk, pivoted as it were by the water-borne stern, dropped until it resumed its normal horizontal position. Fosterdyke alone had remained in the navigation-room. Directly he saw that the airship was resting temporarily on the surface and was beginning to gather way like a gigantic hydroplane he switched off the remaining motors. "Every man for himself," he shouted. CHAPTER XXVI--"WELL PLAYED, SIR!" Water poured into the open doors and windows and through the charred and torn stern of the nacelle. The aluminium envelope, not built to withstand abnormal stress, began buckling amidships. Tension wires, no longer in tension but in compression, were spreading in all directions as the huge gas-bag settled down upon the already foundering nacelle.