Steer upwards and onwards." Like a man hypnotised he obeyed,--and in a few moments the air-ship, answering easily to the helm, rose lightly as a bubble from the depths of the canon, through the fiercely dashing showers of spray tossed by the foaming torrent, and soared aloft, high and ever higher, as swiftly as any living bird born for long and powerful flight.

Night was falling; and through the dense purple shadows of the Californian sky a big white moon rose, bending ghost-like over the scene of destruction and chaos, lighting with a pale glare the tired and haggard faces of the relief men at their terrible work of digging out the living and the dead from the vast pits of earth into which they had been suddenly engulfed,--while far, far above them flew the "White Eagle," gradually lessening in size through distance till it looked no bigger than a dove on its homeward way.

Some priests watching by a row of lifeless men, women and children killed in the earthquake, chanted the "Nunc Dimittis" as the evening grew darker,--and the only one among them who had first seen the air-ship over the canon, where it fell, as it were in the deep gulf surrounded by flood and foam, now raised his eyes in wonderment as he perceived it once more soaring at liberty towards the moon.
"Surely a miracle!" he ejaculated, under his breath--"An escape from destruction through God's mercy! God be praised!" And he crossed himself devoutly, joining in the solemn chanting of his brethren, kneeling in the moonlight, which threw a ghastly lustre on the dead faces of the victims of the earthquake,--victims not "struck by the hand of God" but by the hand of man! And he who was responsible for the blow lay unconscious of having dealt it, and was borne through the air swiftly and safely away for ever from the tragic scene of the ruin and desolation he had himself wrought..