Freakish-looking men hovered about their weird helicopters and lovingly polished brass and tested engines.

All God's chillun got helicopters.

All God's chillun got helicopters.

WILLIAMS, BEN D. Henry the helicopter.

And the six helicopters, whose cylindrical, turbine-like drums gleamed with metallic glittersthree on each side along the fuselagecould at will produce an absolutely static condition of lift or even make the plane hover and soar quite vertically.

Here were the starting, stopping, and speed controls of the helicopters, which were under direct electrical motivation by the pilot.

The Master slowed the helicopters.

He slowed, circled, playing with vacuum-lift, helicopters, engines, as if they had been keys of a familiar instrument.

The voice, in ordinary tones, carried perfectly; and yet in that small space nearly 7,000 H.P. were being produced and transmitted to the propellers and to the storage batteries that operated helicopters and compressed-air system, as well as the lighting-plant of the air-liner.

The helicopters began to turn, to buzz, to roar into furious activity, seeking to check the plunge.

Her helicopters were droning with all the force that could be flung into them from the crippled power-plant.

The high-pitched drone of the helicopters told that the crippled engines were doing their best; but even that best was not quite enough.

The exuberance of his nature burst forth with a half-defiant: "If I were in charge, which I'm not, I'd stop those damned helicopters, let her down, turn what power we've got into the remaining propellers, and taxi ashore!"

The droning of the helicopters, the drift of the sickly white smoke thatrising from Nissr's sternwafted down-wind with her, the drunken angle of her position all gave evidence of the serious position in which the Flying Legion now found itself.

The drone of the helicopters sank to a sullen murmur; and down below, waves began combing angrily over the gallery.

Helicopters O.K." "And floats?"

The engines had already been started, and the helicopters had begun to turn, flickering swiftly in their turbine-tubes.

" CHAPTER XXVIII ONWARD TOWARD THE FORBIDDEN CITY The Master rang for full engine-power, and threw in all six helicopters with one swift gesture.

The droning of the helicopters rose to a shrill hum.

"Slow her!" commanded the Master into the engine-room phone, and began compensating with the helicopters, as Nissr lagged over the crowded city.

The air-liner sank slowly, with a hissing of air-intakes into the vacuum-floats, and hung there, trembling, quivering with the slow back-revolution of her screws, the swift energy of her helicopters.

This time a murmur rose to him; a murmur increasing to a confused tumult, that in an angry wave of malediction beat up about Nissr as she hung there with spinning helicopters, over the city.

The only witnesses were the Arabian Desert stars; the only requiem the droning of the helicopters far above, where Nissr hung with her gleaming lights like other, nearer stars in the dense black sky.

The roar of the propellers lessened; and at the same time, the increasing hum of the helicopters made itself heard, counterbalancing the loss of lifting power of the planes, yet gradually letting the air-liner sink.

The helicopters were cut off.