about the same distance above the surface of the earth as it approached the ocean again.

Captain Bonnet used a few more ounces of fuel to keep the craft in its course, headed always toward the horizon, which at 1,600 feet seemed fifty miles away.

Down the craft sank, inch by inch, toward the sea. Suddenly Lieutenant Riley shouted and pointed:

"Dougherty Island! Over there!"

A black speck rose out of the Pacific dead ahead.

The two men already had slipped into their emergency landing harness to protect themselves from the deceleration that was bound to come. They had swallowed pills to protect themselves from the gravitational pressure and now they felt the drug taking hold of their systems.

The ship seemed to be sailing parallel to the surface of the sea. The tops of the waves reached up and touched the bottom of the craft, and evaporated in a hiss of steam.

Gracefully, like a huge dirigible airship, the lifeboat dipped down. It shuddered as the disturbed air roared like thunder around it. There was a tremendous drag and a loud explosion as the ship touched the water.

Both men pitched forward in their harness.

Captain Bonnet felt the world growing black around him. With superhuman effort he shook off the threatened blackout and sent the last drop of fuel into the lower jets to hold the ship one second more above the waves.

There was a terrific jar. Tons and tons of pressure exerted itself against the ship and on the men inside. But nothing cracked.

Outside the window, vision was obscured by clouds of swirling vapor. The craft bounded forward in gigantic, hundred-mile leaps, like a rock skipping across the surface of a huge pond.

Lieutenant Riley hung limply in his harness, a stream of blood trickling from his nose. Slowly he opened his eyes.

"We're alive!" he gasped.

Then he fainted again.

The craft slowed down. A startled fishing craft off the Central American coast almost capsized in the wash of the monster from the skies.

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