In the gloom of the pilot-house, his shoulders bulked huge as he fired.

Captain Alden, staggering back, sat down heavily on one of the sofa-lockers.
One or two faint shots still popped, along the cliff, with little pin-pricks of fire in the dark.

Then all sounds of opposition vanished.

The _Nissr_, upborne at her wonderful climbing-angle toward the clouds painted by her searchlight--clouds like a rippled, moonlit veil through which peeped faint stars--spiraled above the Hudson and in a vast arc turned her beak into the south.
Disorder died.

Silence fell, save for the whistling of the sudden wind of the airship's own motion, and for the steadily mounting drone of the huge propellers.
"Made it all right, by God!" exclaimed Bohannan, excitedly.