fly without control; then I felt him returning attention to me; control caught me; and I sank in my straps, sweating. Suppose the strange, inquiring machine had been a fighting plane and shot Kinvarra down!
It had borne no arms at all; it merely had blundered by to see what was going on and had been shot down, therefore, like a bystander witnessing a crime in a street.
Kinvarra was swinging me and himself back toward the ship. Above it, three biplanes, with their bombs like great evil eggs below them, steadily circled; higher, circled the six machines of Bane's immediate command. The other six of our squadron clung to the ceiling. The fourth bomb-bearer I did not see. I scanned the water about the Wotan.
The little boats, speckled with thick clusters of dots which were men, women and children, were being launched on the left side; for the ship, in settling, listed to the left. It listed so far, indeed, that launching appeared to be impossible on the right; at least, on that side no boats reached the water. I could see, on the sky-deck, the scrambling specks trying to push
