"See for yourself, Major, what you make of it! Right in the sun's eye, and off to southward--all along that fantastic, crimson cloud-castle." Bohannan's gaze narrowed through his own glasses. Bracing his powerful legs against the quivering jar of the aileron, he brushed the horizon into his eager vision. The glasses steadied. There, of a truth, black midges had appeared, coming up over the world's rim like a startled covey of quail. CHAPTER XV THE BATTLE OF VIBRATIONS Two, five, a dozen, now a score of tiny specks dotted the mist, some moving right across the broadening face of the sun itself. As _Nissr's_ flight stormed eastward, and these gnats drove to the west, their total rate of approach must have been tremendous; for even as the men watched, they seemed to find the attackers growing in bulk. And now more and ever more appeared, transpiring from the bleeding vapors of dawn. "Looks like business, sir!" exclaimed the Celt, his jaw hard. "Business, yes." "Bad business for us, eh?" "It might be, if we had only the usual means of defense. Under ordinary circumstances, our only game would be to turn tail and run for it, or cut away far to the south--or else break out a white flag and surrender. But--" "That must be the Azores air-fleet," judged Bohannan. "The others couldn't have made so much westing, in this time. Faith, what a buzzing swarm of mosquitoes! I had no idea there were that many planes on the Azores International Air Board station!" "There are many things you have no idea of, Major," replied the Master, sharply. "That, however, is immaterial. Yes, here come the fringes of attack, all right enough. I estimate forty or fifty in sight, already; and there must be a few hundred back of those, between here and land, north and south. Technically, we're pirates, you know." "Pirates?" demanded the major, lowering his glass. The Master nodded. "Yes," he answered. "That's what the wireless tells us. We'll get short shrift if--my apparatus fails." "How do they make us out pirates?" Bohannan ejaculated. It was not fear that looked from his blue eyes, but a vast astonishment. His ruddy face, amazed under the now strengthening light of day, brought a smile to the Master's lips. "What else are we, my dear fellow?" the Master queried. "To seize a ship--a water-ship or one of the air matters nothing--and to overpower the crew, kill or wound a few, throw them outboard and sail away, comes pretty near constituting piracy. Of course the air-rules and laws aren't wholly settled yet; but we're in a fair way of giving the big-wigs a whacking precedent to govern the future. I fancy a good many cases will be judged as _per_ the outcome of this expedition. "We're pirates all right--if they catch us. And they _will_ catch us if they get within gunshot. The next few minutes will settle that question of whether they're going to, or not!"