One by one, however, the ships managed to dip below the crests of the outlying hills until only one barely moving craft was in sight.
As the craft neared the building, and just before she struck, the Martian warriors swarmed upon her from the windows, and with their great spears eased the shock of the collision, and in a few moments they had thrown out grappling hooks and the big boat was being hauled to ground by their fellows below.
The next breaker rolled them over and over, but eventually they all succeeded in crawling to safety, and in a moment more their ungainly
craft had been washed up beside them.
Scarcely waiting for their
craft to touch, the creatures manning them leaped among the therns with the fury of demons.
The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the
craft of the woods; and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and said, 'Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.'
As men of scrupulous honour set up a high standard of public conscience above the dead-level of an honest community, so men of that skill which passes into art by ceaseless striving raise the dead-level of correct practice in the
crafts of land and sea.
On into the Stygian darkness beyond he urged his
craft.
Should this enveloping force be interrupted in any direction a delicate instrument immediately apprehends the irregularity, at the same time imparting an impulse to a magnetic device which in turn actuates the steering mechanism, diverting the bow of the flier away from the obstacle until the
craft's radio-activity sphere is no longer in contact with the obstruction, then she falls once more into her normal course.
To her surprise she discovered that she could not even turn against the high wind, which rocked and buffeted the frail
craft. Then she dropped swiftly to the dark and wind-swept zone between the hurtling clouds and the gloomy surface of the shadowed ground.
Now and then some lonely Indian hut could be seen, and occasionally a
craft propelled by a man who was trying to gain a meager living from the rubber forest which hemmed in the stream on either side.
A brisk breeze arose about ten o'clock; but, though it might have been prudent to take in a reef, the pilot, after carefully examining the heavens, let the
craft remain rigged as before.
As Hooja's canoe reached a point some twenty yards from us a great puff of smoke broke from the bow of the leading felucca, followed almost simultaneously by a terrific explosion, and a solid shot screamed close over the heads of the men in Hooja's
craft, raising a great splash where it clove the water just beyond them.