The Master laughed again, and strode out into the main corridor, with Leclair close behind him. "Men!" he called, his voice blaring a trumpet-call to action. "Volunteers for a shore-party to clean out that kennel of dogs!" None held back. All came crowding into the spacious corridor, its floor now laterally level but sloping toward the stern, as _Nissr's_ damaged aft-floats had filled and sunk. "Revolvers and lethal pistols!" he ordered. "And knives in belts! Come on!" Up the ladder they swarmed to the take-off gallery. Their feet rang and clattered on the metal rounds. Other than that, a, strange silence filled the giant air-liner. The engines now lay dead. _Nissr_ was motionless, save for the pitch and swing of the surf that tossed her; but forward she could no longer go. As the men came up to the top gallery, the hands of the setting sun reached out and seized them with red ardor. The radiance was half blinding, from that sun and from light reflected by the heavily running waves, all white-caps to shore. On both aileron-tips, the machine-guns were spitting intermittently, worked by crews under the major and Ferrara, the Italian ace. "Cease firing!" ordered the Master. "Simonds, you and Prisrend deal out the lethal guns. Look alive, now!" Sheltering themselves from the patter of slugs behind stanchions and bulwarks, the Legionaries waited. The sea wind struck them with hot intensity; the sun, now almost down, flung its river of blood from ship to horizon, all dancing in a shimmer of heat. By the way _Nissr_ was thumping her floats on the bottom, she seemed about to break up. But, undismayed, the Legionaries armed themselves, girt on their war-gear and, cool-disciplined under fire, waited the order to leap into the sea. Not even the sight of a still body in the starboard gallery--a body from under which a snaky red line was crawling, zigzagging with each pitch of the liner--gave them any pause. This crew was well blooded, ready for grim work of give-and-take. "A task for me, sir!" exclaimed "Captain Alden," pointing at the body. The Master refused. "No time for nursing, now!" he negatived the plea. "Unless you choose to remain behind?" "Never, sir!" "Can you swim with one arm?" "With both tied!" "Very well! All ready, men! Overboard, to the beach! There, dig in for further orders. No individual action! No charge, without command! Overboard--come on--who follows me?" He vaulted the rail, plunged in a white smother, surged up and struck out for shore. Rrisa was not half a second behind him. Then came all the others (save only that still figure on the buffed metals), a deluge of leaping, diving men.