Presently the liner hovered, poised, sank, remained a little over 750 feet above the observatory on the roof-top.
"Cracowicz!" ejaculated the Master, into the phone again, as his deft fingers made another connection.

A foreign voice answered: "Yes, sir!" alertly.
"Ready in the lower gallery now, with the winch and tackles!" bade the Master.
Again came: "Yes, sir!" from the man in charge of the three who already knew perfectly well what was expected of them.

As _Nissr_ slowly turned, a trap opened in the bottom of her lower gallery, almost directly between the two forward vacuum-floats, and down sped a little landing nacelle or basket at the end of a fine steel cable.
Swiftly the electric winch dropped the nacelle, containing three men.
It slowed, at their command, through the phone that led up the wire.
With hardly a jar, the basket landed on the roof.
The men jumped out, made fast their tackles to Captain Alden's plane there, leaped in again and signaled: "Hoist away!" With noiseless speed the winch gathered in the cable.

Up swooped the nacelle.

As it cleared the roof, _Nissr_ purred forward, slid away, gathered speed over the city where already the alarm had been given.
In four minutes the men had safely landed in the lower gallery once more, and the plane was being hoisted by davits and made fast on the upper platform, known as the take-off, which served as a runway for planes leaving the ship or alighting thereon.
Over the light-spangled city the giant air-liner gathered way.
Three or four searchlights had already begun trying to pick her up.