A violent detonation flung echoes from sea and shore; and bits of splintered wreckage spun down past the windows, to plunge into the still swirling, bubbling sea.
The Master made no answer, but rang for the propellers to be clutched in.

_Nissr_ obeyed their quickening whirl.

Her altitude was already four hundred and fifty feet, as marked by the altimeter.

Lamely she moved ahead, sagging to starboard, badly scarred, ill-trimmed and awry, but still alive.
Her great black shadow, trailing behind her in the water, passed on to the beach, wrinkled itself up over the dunes and slid across the sand-drifts where little flutters of cloth, uncovered by the ghoulish jackals, showed from the burning stretch of tawny desert.
Flocks of vultures rose and soared away.

Jackals and hyenas cowered and slunk to cover.