An inch or so of water was sloshing back and forth the length of the cabin as the ship careened wildly in the gale; but it could not add any to my discomfort, for I was already wet to the skin.

That night! All of its horrors are engraved indelibly upon my memory. The wind increased; I think it must have approached the violence of a hurricane. The ship was tossed and whirled about like a feather; every instant I expected that it would be torn to pieces. How it withstood the buffeting of the storm is beyond me.

When morning came, I saw that we were but a few hundred feet above the water; the chill air and the weight of the rain-soaked envelope of the gas bag were holding us down. The night had been spent in darkness, the batteries that lighted the cabin having suddenly ceased to function. Whether it was because the generation that had charged them had gone out of commission with the engine, or the sea water had flooded them and caused a short circuit in the wiring system. I did not know; but I did know that the batteries dead were of more value to me than before; they represented weight that I could throw overboard.

They would have gone before the engine had I known where they were located. As soon as it was light enough, I commenced to search for them. Eventually I found them in a box beneath the cabin floor, and when they had gone after the engine and I had managed to drain the sea water from the cabin we gained altitude steadily.

Shortly after dawn the rain stopped, but the wind still howled about me like a demon gone mad. At last, however, it proved helpful; it dried the cordage and the envelope and so relieved the dirigible of weight that it continued to rise steadily until we must have had several thousand feet of altitude by noon.

For three days the wind blew violently, and little by little I stripped the gondola of everything I could pry loose to throw overboard. When we dropped closer to the ocean I could see that the seas were enormous. It was under such conditions that I sighted a ship.

We must have been drifting about a thousand feet above the surface. I had been sitting on the edge of my bunk eating. It was not often now that I took the trouble to look down at the ocean; the less I saw of it the better I was suited. But when I got up after eating, I chanced to look through one of the windows; and there was a ship right in the path of our drifting and only a short distance ahead.

It was a big freighter, and it certainly looked good to me. It was the only thing I had seen in a week to assure me that I was not the sole inhabitant of a world.

I thought it must be heavily laden, for even at the altitude I was, I could see that it was riding low in the water; every now and then a big sea broke over it. I must have been a little mad even to contemplate jumping, but I could see nothing but death awaiting me if I stuck to the dirigible; and that ship looked good to me, so big and safe, that I couldn't imagine but that its captain would find a way to pick me up. If luck were with me, I might even manage to alight on the ship's deck. What madness! I realize it now; but then, after what I had passed through, I was willing to risk the chance of death just to escape from that derelict flying coin that I felt was carrying me to my grave.

Hastily I donned the parachute that Perry had brought along for himself in the event that he was compelled to bail out; then I pushed the gondola door open. The dirigible was pitching about crazily, and I had to cling tightly to the sides of the doorway to keep from being thrown out.

The wind was carrying us steadily toward the position of the freighter. I wanted to time my jump so that after the chute opened the wind would continue to carry me toward the vessel and not beyond it; therefore, I planned to jump before we were over it.

It was a rather difficult problem to figure, and I realized that it was only guesswork at the best; but at last the time came. Perhaps I should have breathed a prayer, but I didn't. From some reason I took a deep breath, looked down at the great freighter wallowing in the seas below, and then-

Chapter 6 Into the Sea

I BREAK INTO A COLD SWEAT EVEN NOW WHEN I THINK HOW close I came to jumping. My salvation was just a matter of a split second. I was poised to throw myself out; I had even loosened my hold on the door frame, and was thinking about the rip cord on the chute and hoping the latter would function properly, when an enormous sea broke over the bow of the freighter. For a moment the entire ship was obliterated by a foaming maelstrom of water; then the stern rose high above the waves until it stood almost vertical. It poised there for a few seconds; then it slid swiftly beneath the waves. The great freighter was no more.

For a moment I stood there horrified, looking down at the empty sea; then I hastily closed the door, removed the parachute, and threw myself on my bunk. I don't mind admitting that hope was pretty nearly at low ebb right then.

Toward the end of the third day the storm had abated, the sky was clear, the sun was hot; but even so, the bag had lost so much buoyancy that I feared the ship could not keep the air during a long, cold night. By this time I had jettisoned everything that I could spare.