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In Stern's ears roared a droning as of a billion hornets He felt a vast, tree,at his very brain His breath careat difficulty

"My God!" he panted "Oh, for a little fuel! Oh, for a chance--a chance to fight--for life!"

But chance there was none, now Before his eyes there seeh it, piercing it with a supreht of the dial of the chronometer Subconsciously he noted that it ? In vain his wavering intelligence battered at the problem Now, as in a delirium, he fancied it had been only hed--he tried to scream--he raved And only the stout straps that had held the iven way! Part of the left hand plane had broken loose Drunkenly, whirling head over like an albatross shot in hted, swerved, shot far ahead, then once again sohts of air-pressure, condensation and compression, resistance, abstruse forantic proble hurled at him, to solve--it seehoul-like de him until he answered--and that he could not answer!

He had a diand swollen in his ha brows Then consciousness lapsed

Lapsed, yet caain--and with it pain An awful pain in the ear-drums, that roared and crackled without cease

Breath! He was fighting for breath!

It was a night wind--a drea vapors and an endless void that sucked the visions of safety Both hands flung out as though to clutch the roaring gale, he fought the intangible

Again he lost all knowledge

And once again--how long after, how could he know?--he came to some partial realization of tortured existence

In one of thespiral slant--his staring, bloodshot eyes that sought to pierce the ht

The engineer screahter

"Another hallucination!" was his thought "But if it's not--if it's Hell--then welcome, Hell! Welcome even that, for a chance to stop!"