Project Gutenberg's The Log of the Flying Fish, by Harry Collingwood

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Title: The Log of the Flying Fish
       A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure

Author: Harry Collingwood

Illustrator: Gordon Browne

Release Date: April 13, 2007 [EBook #21057]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOG OF THE FLYING FISH ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Log of the "Flying Fish"
A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure

By Harry Collingwood
________________________________________________________________________
This book has a firm place in British literature, for it was one of the
very first in the genre of science-fiction.

A German professor, living for some reason in London, takes on some
adventurous and rich Englishmen, and sets off with them in an airship
that is made of a material so light that it can rise vertically into
the air if you pump out some of the air in its ballast tanks.  It can
also plunge into the depths of the ocean, because this special material,
aetherium, is so strong that it can withstand water pressure to a great
depth.

In this vehicle they visit the North Pole, having several adventures on
the way, including finding the remains of a Viking ship.  They visit a
region in Africa where they depose the existing King and install a King
who is more to their taste.  Then they head off for Mount Everest, where
they become the first persons to sit on the summit.  Here again they
have more adventures of a perilous kind.

It's a good book, well worth reading, and I commend it to you.  NH.
________________________________________________________________________
THE LOG OF THE "FLYING FISH"
A STORY OF AERIAL AND SUBMARINE PERIL AND ADVENTURE

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD



CHAPTER ONE.

PROFESSOR VON SCHALCKENBERG MAKES A STARTLING SUGGESTION.

The "Migrants'" Club stands on the most delightful site in all London;
and it is, as the few who are intimately acquainted with it know full
well, one of the most cosy and comfortable clubs in the great
metropolis.

It is by no means a _famous_ club; the building itself has a very
simple, unpretentious elevation, with nothing whatever about it to
attract the attention of the passer-by; but its interior is fitted up in
such a style of combined elegance and comfort, and its domestic
arrangements are so perfect, as to leave nothing to be desired.

Its numerous members are essentially wanderers upon the face of the
earth--that is the one distinguishing characteristic wherein they most
widely differ from their fellow-men--they are ceaseless travellers;
mighty hunters in far-off lands; adventurous yachtsmen; eager explorers;
with a small sprinkling of army and navy men.  Their visits to their
club are infrequent in the extreme; but, during the brief and widely
separated intervals when they have the opportunity to put in an
appearance there, they like to be made thoroughly comfortable; and no
pains are spared to secure their complete gratification in this respect.

The smoke-room of the "Migrants'" presented an appearance of especial
comfort and attractiveness on a certain cold and stormy February evening
a few years ago.  A large fire blazed in the polished steel grate and
roared cheerfully up the chimney, in rivalry of the wind, which howled
and scuffled and rumbled in the flue higher up.  An agreeable
temperature pervaded the room, making the lashing of the fierce rain on
the window-panes sound almost pleasant as one basked in the light and
warmth of the apartment and contrasted it with the state of cold and wet
and misery which reigned supreme outside.  A dozen opal-shaded gas-
burners brilliantly lighted the room, and revealed the fact that it was
handsomely and liberally furnished with luxurious divans, capacious
easy-chairs, a piano, a table loaded with the papers and periodicals of
the day, an enormous mirror over the black marble mantel-piece, a clock
with a set of silvery chimes for the quarters, and a deep, mellow-toned
gong for the hours, and so many pictures that the whole available
surface of the walls was completely covered with them.  These pictures--
executed in both oil and water-colour--represented out-of-the-way scenes
visited, or incidents participated in by the members who had executed
them, and all possessed a considerable amount of artistic merit; it
being a rule of the club that every picture should be submitted to a
hanging committee of distinctly artistic members before it could be
allowed a place upon the smoke-room walls.

The occupants of the room on the evening in question were four in
number.  One, a German, known as the Professor Heinrich von
Schalckenberg, was half buried in the recesses of a huge arm-chair, from
the depths of which he perused the pages of the _Science Monthly_,
smoking meanwhile a pipe with a huge elaborately carved meerschaum bowl
and a long cherry-wood stem.  From the ferocious manner in which he
glared through his spectacles at the pages of the magazine, from the
impatience with which he from time to time dashed his disengaged hand
through the masses of his iron-grey hair, and from the frequent
ejaculations of "Pish!"  "Psha!"  "Ach!" and so on which escaped his
lips, accompanied by vast volumes of smoke, it seemed evident that he
was not altogether at one with the author whose article he was perusing.
He was an explorer and a scientist.

Near the Herr Professor there reclined upon a divan the form of Sir
Reginald Elphinstone, sometimes called by his friends "the handsome
baronet," said to be _the_ richest commoner in England.  At the age of
thirty-five, having freely exposed himself to all known sources of
peril, except those involved in a trip to the Polar regions, in his
eager pursuit of sport and adventure, Sir Reginald seemed, for the
moment, to have no object left him in life but to shoot as many rings as
possible of cigar-smoke through each other, as he lay there on the divan
in an attitude more easy than elegant.

Square in front of the fire, dreamily puffing at his cigar and
apparently studying the merits of a painting hanging behind him, and on
the reflected image of which in the mirror before him his eyes lazily
rested, sat Cyril Lethbridge, ex-colonel of the Royal Engineers, a
successful gold-seeker, and almost everything else to which a spice of
adventure could possibly attach itself.

And next him again, on the side of the fire-place opposite to the Herr
Professor, lounged Lieutenant Edward Mildmay, R.N.

The lieutenant was skimming through the daily papers.  Presently he
looked up and remarked to the colonel:

"I see that some Frenchmen have been making experiments in the
navigation of balloons."

"Ah, indeed!" responded the colonel, with his head thrown critically on
one side, and his eyes still fixed on the reflection of the picture.
"And with what result?"

"Oh, failure, of course."

"And failure it always will be.  The thing is simply an impossibility,"
remarked the colonel.

"No, bardon me, colonel, id is not an imbossibilidy by any means."

This from the professor.

"Indeed?  Then how do you account for it, professor, that all attempts
to navigate a balloon have hitherto failed?" asked the colonel.

"Begause, my dear zir, the aeronauts have never yed realised all the
requiremends of zuccess," replied the professor, laying down his
magazine as though quite prepared to go thoroughly into the question.

The colonel accepted the challenge, and, rousing himself from his semi-
recumbent posture, said:

"That is quite possible; but what _are_ the requirements of success?"

The professor knocked the ashes out of his meerschaum, refilled it with
the utmost deliberation, carefully lighted it, gave a few vigorous
puffs, and replied:

"The requiremends of zuccess in balloon navigation are very zimilar to
those which enable a man to draverse the ocean.  If a man wants to make
a voyage agross the ocean he embargs in a ship, not on a life-buoy.  Now
a balloon is nothing more than a life-buoy; id zusdains a man, but that
is all.  Id drifts aboud with the currends of air jusd as a life-buoy
drifts aboud with the currends of ocean, and the only advandage which
the aeronaud has over the man with the life-buoy is thad the former can
ascend or descend in search of a favourable air currend, whereas the
ladder is obliged do dake the ocean currends as they come."

"Very true," remarked the colonel; "and what do you deduce from that,
professor?"

"I deduse from thad thad the man who wands to navigade the air musd do
as his brother the sailor does, he musd have a _ship_."

"Well, is not a balloon a sort of air ship?"

"You may gall it zo iv you like, colonel, I do nod; I call it merely a
buoy," returned the professor.  "A _ship_ is a zomething gabable of
_moving_ in the elemend which zustains it; a balloon is ingabable of any
indebendend movement in the air; it drifts aboud at the mercy of every
idle wind that blows.  Id is like a ship on a breathless sea; withoud
any means of brobulsion the ship lies motionless, or drifts at the mercy
of the currends.  Bud give the ship a means of brobulsion, and
navigation ad once begomes bossible.  And zo will it be with balloons."

"Well, that has already been tried," remarked the colonel; "but the
buoyancy of a balloon is too slight to permit of its being fitted with
engines and a boiler."

"My vriendt," said the professor impressively, "whad would you think of
the man who tried to pud the engines and boilers of an Atlantic liner in
a leedle boad?"

"I should think him an unmitigated ass," retorted the colonel.

"Jusd so.  Yed thad is whad the aeronauds have been doing; they have
been drying to make the leedle boad-balloon garry the brobelling bower
of the aerial ship.  In other words, they have not made their balloons
large enough."

"Then you think they have not yet reached the practical limit to the
size of a balloon?" asked the colonel.

"They have--very nearly--if balloons are do be made only of silk," was
the reply.  "Bud if _navigable_ balloons are to be gonsdrugded,
aeronauds musd durn do other maderials and adobd another form.  As I
said before, they musd build a _shib_, and she musd be of sufficiend
size to float in the air and to garry all her eguipments."

"But such an aerial ship would be a veritable _monster_" protested the
colonel.

"Zo are the Adlandic liners of the presend day," quietly answered the
professor.

"Phew!" whistled the colonel.  The baronet rose from the divan, flung
away the stump of his cigar, and settled himself to listen, and perhaps
take part in the singular conversation.

"And of what would you build your aerial ship, professor?" asked the
colonel when he had in some measure recovered from his astonishment.

"Of the lighdesd and, ad the zame dime, sdrongesd maderial I gould
find," answered the professor.  "Once get the aeronaud to realise thad
greadly ingreased bulk and a differend form are necessary, and id will
nod be long before he will find a suitable building maderial.  Iv I were
an aeronaud I should dry medal."

"Metal!" exclaimed the colonel.  "Oh, come, professor; now you are
romancing, you know.  A ship of metal would never float in the
atmosphere."

"A zimilar remarg was made nod zo very many years ago when id was
suggesded that ocean shibs could be buildt of medal," retorted the
professor.  "Yed there are thousands of medal shibs in exisdenze do-day;
and there can be no doubt as do the facd thad they fload.  And zo will
an aerial shib.  The gread--in facd the _only_ diffiguldy in the madder
is thad air is eight hundred dimes lighder than wader; and an air shib
of given dimensions musd therefore be ad leasd eight hundred dimes
lighder than her ocean sisder do enable her do fload in the atmosphere.
The broblem, then, is this: How are you to gonsdrugt a medal shib, of
given dimensions, sdrong enough do hold dogether and withsdand the shock
of goming do earth, yed of less weighd than her own bulk of air?  With
the medals hitherdoo ad our disbosal, I admid thad the dask is a
diffiguld one; bud I maindain thad id is by no means an imbossibilidy.
An ocean shib musd be buildt sdrong enough nod only do susdain the
weighd of her gargo--often amounding do upwards of a thousand dons--bud
also do withstand the dremendous and incessandly varying sdrain do which
she is exbosed when garrying thad gargo through a moundainous sea.  This
enormous sdrength necessidades the use of a gorresbonding thickness--and
therefore weighd--of the medal used in her gonsdruction.  Such brovision
would of gourse be unnecessary in the gase of an aerial shib; begause no
one would dream of garrying an ounze of unnecessary weighd through the
air; and there are no moundain seas in the admosphere to sdrain a shib.
A vasd saving in weighd would resuld from these zirgumsdances alone; and
a further saving--zufficiend, I believe, to aggomblish the desired
object--gan, no doubd, be effecded by skilful engineers, one of whose
greadesd driumphs id is do design sdrugdures in which the maximum of
sdrength is zecured with the minimum of weighd.  Id musd nod be
forgodden, either, thad an air shib musd, in one imbordand bardigular,
be dreated exactly like her ocean sisder.  An ocean shib gonsdrugded,
say, of sdeel, will sink if filled with wader, begause sdeel is heavier
than wader, bulk for bulk; bud bump oud all the wader from her inderior,
and if she be proberly gonsdrugded, she will fload on the elemend she is
indended do navigade.  And the same with an air shib: bump out all or
nearly all the air which she gondains, and if she be gonsdrugded in
aggordanze with the brincibles I have indigaded, she will fload in the
lighder elemend."

"Upon my word, professor, you have argued your case extremely well,"
exclaimed the colonel.  "I can see only one difficulty in the way; and
that is in the matter of _weight_."

"Which diffiguldy I have gombledely gonquered," triumphantly exclaimed
the professor, rising excitedly from his seat with flushed cheeks and
flashing eyes.  "Do me, Heinrich von Schalckenberg, belongs the honour
and glory of having made dwo mosd imbordand disgoveries, disgoveries of
ingalgulable value do the worldt, disgoveries which will enable me do
soar ad will indo the highesd regions of the embyrean, do skim the
surface of the ocean, or do blunge do ids lowesd debths."

"Bravo, professor; that was positively dramatic!" exclaimed the baronet.
"You have mistaken your business, my dear sir; you were undoubtedly
born to be an actor.  But what are these two most important discoveries
of which you so exultantly speak?"

"They are a new medal and a new power," exclaimed the professor.  Then,
fumbling in his breast-pocket, he drew forth a wallet from which he
extracted a small rectangular plate of--apparently--polished silver.  It
measured about five inches long by four inches broad, and was about a
quarter of an inch thick.

"There, Sir Reginald," he exclaimed, offering the plate to the baronet,
"dell me whad you think of thad."

"Very pretty indeed," commented Sir Reginald, as he held out his hand to
take it.  "What is it?  Silver?  Phew!  No; it can't be that," as his
fingers closed upon it; "it is far too light for silver.  Why, it seems
to be absolutely devoid of weight altogether.  What is it, professor?"

"Thad, my good sir, is my new medal, which I gall `_aethereum_' begause
of ids wonderful lighdness.  See here."

There was a very handsome cut glass water-jug, full, standing on the
table in a capacious salver of hammered brass.  The professor took up
the jug and emptied it into the salver, almost filling the latter.  Then
he laid the glittering slab of metal down on the surface of the water,
where it floated as buoyantly as though it had been an empty box
constructed of the lightest cardboard.  The professor raised the salver
from the table and agitated the water, to show that the metal actually
floated.

"Why, it floats as lightly as a cork!" exclaimed the colonel in the
utmost astonishment.

"Korg!" exclaimed the professor disdainfully, "korg is _heavy_ gombared
with this.  This is the lighdesd solid known.  Loog ad this."

The professor lifted the plate of metal out of the water, and, wiping it
dry very carefully with his silk pocket-handkerchief, held it suspended,
flat side downwards, between his finger and thumb.  Then, when he had
poised it as nearly horizontal as he could guess at, he let it go.  It
wavered about in the air as a thin sheet of paper would have done, and
finally sailed aslant and very gently to the ground, amid the astonished
exclamations of the beholders, by whom it was immediately examined with
the utmost curiosity.

"You have seen for yourselves and gan therefore judge how marvellously
lighd this medal is," continued the professor when the plate had been
handed back to him; "bud ids _sdrength_ you musd dake my word for, as I
have no means ad hand do illusdrade id.  Ids sdrength is as wonderful as
ids lighdness, being--zo var as I have had obbordunidy do desd id--
exactly one hundred dimes thad of the besd sdeel."

"If that be the case, professor, then I should say you have solved the
problem of aerial navigation," remarked the colonel.  "But you spoke of
having also discovered a new power.  What is it?"

The professor once more instituted a search in his pockets, and at
length produced a small paper packet, which, on being opened, was found
to contain about a table-spoonful of green metallic-looking crystals.

"There id is," he said, handing the packet to the colonel for
inspection.

"Um!" ejaculated the colonel, turning the crystals over slowly with his
finger.  "Quite new to me; I don't recognise them at all.  And what is
the nature of the power derivable from these crystals?"

"Dreated in one way they give off elegdricidy; dreated in another way
they yield an exbansive gas, which may be subsdiduded for either
gunbowder or sdeam," answered the professor.

"Are they explosive, then?" asked the colonel.

"Nod in their bresend form.  You mighd doss all those crysdals indo the
fire with imbunidy; but bowder them and mix indo a baste with a zerdain
acid, and whad you now hold in your hand would develop exblosive bower
enough to demolish this building," was the quiet reply.

The professor's little audience looked at him incredulously; a look to
which he responded by saying:

"Id is quide drue, I assure you," in such convincing tones as left no
room for further doubt.  They knew the professor well; knew him to be
quite incapable of the slightest attempt at deception or exaggeration.

"Then, if I have understood you aright, you will construct your aerial
ship of your new metal, and apply your new power to give motion to her
machinery?" said the colonel.

"Yes.  Thad is do say, I _would_ if I bossessed the means do build such
a ship as I have described.  Bud I am a scientist, and therefore boor.
Never mind; I have no doubt thad, when I make my discoveries known, I
shall find some wealthy man who, for the sake of science, will find der
money," said the professor hopefully.

"How much would it cost to build an aerial ship such as you have been
speaking of?" asked the baronet.

"Oh!  I cannod say.  Nod zo very much.  Berhabs a hundred thousandt
bounds," was the reply.

"Phew!  That's rather `steep,' as the Yankees say.  But--`a fool and his
money are soon parted'--if you are convinced that your scheme is really
practicable, professor, I will find the needful," remarked the baronet.

"Bragdigable!  My dear sir, id is as bragdigable as id is to build a
shib which will navigade the ocean.  I have thoughd the madder oudt, and
there is nod a single weak boindt anywhere in my scheme.  Led me have
der money and I will brovide you with the means of zoaring above the
grest of Mount Everest, or of exbloring the deepest ocean valleys,"
exclaimed the professor enthusiastically.

"Good!" remarked the baronet quietly.  "That is a bargain.  Meet me here
at noon to-morrow, and we will go together to my bankers, where I will
transfer one hundred thousand pounds to your account.  And--what say
you, gentlemen?--when this wonderful ship is completed will you join the
professor and me in an experimental trip round the world?"

"I shall be delighted," exclaimed the colonel.

"Nothing would please me better," remarked the lieutenant.

And so it was agreed.

"Well," remarked the baronet reflectively, and as though he already
began to feel doubtful as to the wisdom of his agreement with the
professor, "if it has no other good result it will at least afford
employment to a few of the unfortunate fellows who are now hanging about
idle day after day."

The professor looked up sharply.

"What!" he exclaimed.  "Of whom are you sbeaging, my dear Sir Reginald?"

"I am speaking of the unfortunate individual known as `the British
Workman,'" was the baronet's quiet reply.

"Am I do understandt thad you make the embloymend of English workmen a
gondition of the underdaking?" asked the professor somewhat sharply.

"By no means, my dear sir," answered Sir Reginald; "I shall not attempt
to impose conditions of any kind upon you.  But I should naturally
expect that, if English workmen are as capable of executing the work as
foreigners, the former would be given the preference in a matter
involving the expenditure of say a hundred thousand pounds of an
Englishman's money."

"Quide zo," concurred the professor; "and you would be perfectly
justified in such an expegdation _if_ the Bridish workman was the
steady, indusdrious, reliable fellow he once was.  Bud, unfordunadely,
he is _nod_ the same, zo var ad leasd as _reliabilidy_ is concerned.
You gannod any longer debend ubon him.  Id is no longer bossible to
underdake a work of any imbordance withoudt the gonsdand haunting fear
that your brogress will be inderrubted--berhaps ad a most cridical
juncture--by a `sdrike,' The greadt quesdion which, above all others,
do-day agidades the British mind is: `Do whadt cause is the bresendt
debression of drade addribudable?'  And, in my obinion, gendlemen, the
answer to that quesdion is thad id is very largely due do the consdandly
recurring sdrikes which have become almosdt _a habid_ with the Bridish
workman.  The `sdrike' is the most formidable engine which has ever been
brought indo oberation do seddle the differences bedween embloyer and
embloyed; and, whilst I am willing to admid thad in certain cases id has
resulded in the repression and redress of long-sdanding oppression and
injusdice, id has been used with such a lack of discrimination as do
have almost ruined the drade of the goundry.  With the invention of the
`sdrike' the workman thoughd he had ad lasd discovered the means of
enriching himself ad the expense of his embloyer, or of securing his
fair and righdful share of the brofids of his labour, as _he_ described
id; and, udderly ignorand of the laws of bolidigal egonomy, recognising
in the `sdrike' merely an insdrumend for forcing a higher rade of wages
from his embloyer, he has gone on recklessly using id undil the
unfordunade gabidalist, finding himself unable do produce his wares ad a
cost which will enable him do successfully gompede with the
manufagdurers of other goundries, has been gombelled to glose his works
and remove his gabidal and his energies to a spodt where he gan find
workmen less unreasonable in their demands.  There is no more capable or
valuable workman in existence than the English artisan, if he gould only
be induced to do his honest _best_ for his embloyer; there is hardly any
branch of industry in which he is nod ad leasd the equal, if not very
greadly the suberior of the foreigner; and id is even yet in his power
to recover the command of the world's market by the suberior excellence
of his broductions, if he could only be brevailed upon do abandon
sdrikes and do be satisfied with a wage which will allow the cabidalist
a fair and moderade redurn for the use of his money and brains and for
the risks he has do run.  If the British workman would gollecdively make
up his mind to do this, and would acquaindt the gabidalist with his
decision, we should speedily see a revival of drade and embloymend for
every really capable workman.  Bud in the meantime there unfordunadely
seems do be very little chance of this; and in so delicade a madder as
the gonsdrugdion of this ship of ours, it would be nod only unwise, but
also unfair to you to run the risk of a failure through the embloymendt
of untractable or unreliable workmen; and if, therefore, you had
insisted on my embloying Englishmen, I should have been relugdandly
gombelled do wash my hands of the whole affair.  Ad the same dime I feel
id due do myself do say thad, even had you nod mendioned the madder, I
should have done my best to secure Englishmen for the work, as of course
I shall now; bud I do nod feel very sanguine as do the resuldt."

"My dear professor!" exclaimed the baronet, smiling at the intense
earnestness of the German, "are you not laying on the colour rather
thickly?  I admit with sorrow that your portrait is only _too_
truthful--as a portrait--still I cannot help thinking it rather highly
coloured.  They are surely not _all_ as despicable as you have painted
them?"

"No," answered the professor with enthusiasm, "no they are nod.  Id was
only a few weeks ago thad I read of the workmen of a cerdain firm
bresending their employers with a full week's work _free_, in order to
helb the firm out of their beguniary diffiguldies.  Now, _they_, I
admid, were fine, noble, sensible fellows; they had indelligence enough
to regognize the diffiguldies of the siduation, and do grabble with them
in a sensible way.  I warrand you _they_ always worked honesdly and
efficiendly whether their embloyer's eye was on them or nod.  And they
will find their reward in due time; their embloyers will never rest
until they have recouped the men for their generous sacrifice.  But
where will you find another body of men like them?  They are only the
one noble, grand exception which goes do brove my rule."

"Well, professor, though what you have said is, in the main, only _too_
true, I cannot agree with you altogether; I believe there are a few
good, intelligent, reliable men to be found here and there, in addition
to those splendid fellows of whom you have just told us," said the
baronet.  "But," he continued, "I will not attempt to constrain you in
any way.  If you cannot find exactly what you want here, import men from
abroad, by all means.  I have a great deal of sympathy for want and
suffering when they are the result of misfortune; but when they are
brought on by a man's own laziness or perversity he must go elsewhere
for sympathy and help; I have none to spare for people of that sort."



CHAPTER TWO.

THE REALISATION OF A SCIENTIST'S DREAM.

Punctual to the moment, Professor von Schalckenberg opened the door of
the smoke-room at the "Migrants'," and entered the apartment as the
deep-toned notes of Big Ben were heard sounding the hour of noon on the
day following that upon which occurred the conversation recorded in the
preceding chapter.  Sir Reginald Elphinstone was already there; and
after a few words of greeting the two men left the club together, and,
entering the baronet's cab, which was in waiting, drove away to the
banker's, where the business of the money transfer was soon concluded.

The pair then separated; and for the next fortnight the professor was
busy all day, and during a great part of the night, with his drawings
and calculations.  At the end of that time, having completed his work on
paper to his satisfaction, he took advantage of a fine day to make a
little excursion.  Proceeding to London Bridge, he embarked in a river
steamer, about ten o'clock in the morning, and indulged himself in a run
down the river.  He kept his eyes sharply about him as the boat sped
down the stream; and just before reaching Blackwall he saw what he
thought would suit him.  It was a ship-building yard, "for sale, or to
let, with immediate possession", as an immense notice-board informed
him.  Landing at the pier, he made his way back to the yard, and, having
with some difficulty found the man in charge of the keys, proceeded to
inspect the premises.  They turned out to be as nearly what he wanted as
he could reasonably hope to find, being very spacious, with a full
supply of "plant," in perfect working order, and with enough spare room
to allow of the laying down of the special "plant" necessary for the
manufacture of his new metal.  Having satisfied himself upon this point,
he next obtained the address of the parties who had the letting of the
yard and works, and proceeded back to town by rail.  The parties of whom
he was now in search proved to be a firm of solicitors having offices in
Lincoln's Inn; and by them, when he had stated the object of his call,
he was received with--figuratively--open arms.  The premises had been
lying idle and profitless for some time; and they were only too glad to
let them to him upon a two years' lease upon terms highly advantageous
to him and his client the baronet.

This important business settled, the next thing was to lay down the
special plant already referred to; and so energetic was the professor in
his management of this and the other necessary preliminaries that six
months sufficed to place the yard in a fit state for the commencement of
actual operations.

And now the professor's troubles began in real earnest.  Impressed with
the idea that he was perhaps wrong after all, and the baronet right, in
his judgment of the British workman, Herr von Schalckenberg determined
to run the risk of giving the Englishmen another trial.  He had no
difficulty whatever in engaging an efficient office staff; but when it
came to securing the services of foremen, mechanics, and labourers, the
unhappy German was driven almost to despair.  He advertised his wants
widely, of course, and, in response to his advertisements, the
applications for employment poured in almost literally without number.
The great entrance-gates of the works were fairly besieged, and the
roadway outside blocked by the great army of applicants, who were
admitted into the presence of the professor in gangs of twenty at a
time.  The professor had set out with the resolve that he would deal as
liberally with his employes as he possibly could, consistently with
justice to his client, the baronet; and with this object he had spared
no pains to ascertain the rate of wages then ruling for such men as he
wanted.  With the data thus obtained he had drawn up a scale of pay
which he was prepared to offer, and beyond which he had resolved not to
go.  Armed with this, he interviewed the countless applicants as they
presented themselves before him; and the result was enough to drive to
distraction even a more patient man than Herr von Schalckenberg.  The
applicants proved to be, almost without exception, trades-unionists, out
on strike because their employers had declined or had been unable to
accede to the exorbitant demands of the workmen.  These workmen had in
many cases been idle for months; yet they now unhesitatingly refused
employment, and refused it insolently too, because the wages offered by
the professor, though fully equal to those paid by other employers, were
less than they chose to consider themselves entitled to.  Their wives
and children were, by their own admission, naked and starving, and here
was an opportunity to clothe and feed them, yet they rejected it
scornfully.  And naked, starving though the families of these wretches
might be and actually were, almost every man of them, bearing out the
professor's criticism of them, had a short dirty pipe in his mouth and
smelt strongly of drink.  There were a few exceptions to this rule--
about one in every fifty applicants, perhaps--and they were almost all
non-union men, who eagerly and thankfully accepted employment, careless
of the sneers, gibes, and threats of the others; and these proved to be,
with scarcely a single exception, steady, reliable, honest, and capable
men, who soon worked themselves into leading positions.  The professor
wanted about two hundred men, and he succeeded in securing twenty; after
which his overtasked patience gave out, and in despair he obtained the
remainder from Germany.

All this took time; and it was not until nearly eight months after the
conversation in the "Migrants'" smoke-room that the professor was
actually able to commence work in the building yard.  Then, however, the
operations proceeded apace.  Day after day long mineral trains jolted
and clanked noisily along the siding and into the yard, where they
disgorged their loads and made way for still other trains; day after day
clumsy steam colliers hauled in alongside the yard wharf and under the
fussy steam-cranes to discharge their cargoes; and very soon the lofty
furnace chimneys began to belch forth a never-ending cloud of inky
smoke.  Very soon, too, the belated wayfarer might possibly, had he been
so disposed, have obtained a chance glimpse, through accidental chinks
in the close palisading, of a long range of brilliantly lighted
buildings, wherein, if the doors happened to be inadvertently left open,
he would have witnessed huge outpourings of dazzling molten metal,
which, after being subjected to the action of certain chemicals, and
passing through divers strange processes, was passed as it solidified
through a series of powerful rolling mills, which relentlessly squeezed
and flattened it out, until it finally emerged, still glowing red with
fervent heat, in the shape of long flat symmetrically shaped sheets, or
angle-bars and girders of various sections.  And, a little later on, an
inquisitive individual, could he have obtained a peep into the jealously
boarded-in building shed, might have seen a far-reaching series of light
circular ribs of glittering silver-like metal, of gradually decreasing
diameter as they spread each way from the central rib, rearing
themselves far aloft toward the ground-glass skylight which surmounted
the roof of the building.  But perhaps the strangest sight of all, could
one but have gained admission into the forge to see it, was the huge
main shaft of the ship, which, after having been mercilessly pounded and
battered into shape by the giant Nasmith hammers, was coolly seized by
only a couple of men, and by them easily carried into the machine-shop,
there to receive its finishing touches in the lathe.

And so the work went on, steadily yet rapidly, until at length it so
nearly approached completion that the professor was every week enabled
to dispense with the services of and pay off an increasingly large
number of men.  Finally, the day arrived when the score or so of
painters and decorators, who then constituted the sole remnant of the
professor's late army of workmen, completed their task of beautifying
the interior of the aerial ship, and, receiving their pay, were
dismissed to seek a new field of labour.  The official staff now alone
remained, and to these, after making them a pleasant little
complimentary speech expressing his appreciation of the zeal and ability
with which they had discharged their duties, Herr von Schalckenberg
announced the pleasant intelligence that, although he had now no further
need of their services, Sir Reginald Elphinstone had, upon his--the
professor's--earnest recommendation, successfully used his influence to
secure them other and immediate employment.  The professor then handed
each man a cheque for his salary, including three months' extra pay in
lieu of the usual notice of dismissal to which he was entitled, together
with a letter of introduction to his new employer, and, shaking hands
with the staff all round, bade them good-bye, wishing them individually
success in their new posts.  Then, watching them file out of the office
for the last time, he waited until all had left the premises, when he
turned the key in the door, and making his way into the interior of the
building shed, found himself at length alone with his completed work.

How the professor spent the next few hours no man but himself can say;
but it is reasonable to suppose that, man of science though he was, he
was still sufficiently human to regard with critical yet innocent pride
and exultation the wonderful fabric which owed its existence to the
inventive ingenuity of his fertile brain.  It is probable, too, that
when he had at length gratified himself with an exhaustive contemplation
of its many points of interest, he went on board the ship, and with his
own eyes and hands made a final inspection and trial of all her
machinery, to satisfy himself that everything was complete and ready.
At all events, however the professor may have passed those few hours of
precious solitude, when he finally handed over the keys to the yard
watchman and bade him "good-night" late on that summer evening, his
whole bearing and appearance was that of a thoroughly happy and
satisfied man.



CHAPTER THREE.

THE "FLYING FISH."

During the whole of the following week stores of various kinds necessary
to the comfort and sustenance of the voyagers were being constantly
delivered at the building yard, where they were received by the valet
and cook of Sir Reginald Elphinstone--the only servants or assistants of
any kind who were to accompany the expedition--and promptly stowed away
by them, under the direction of the professor, who was exceedingly
anxious to accurately preserve the proper "trim" of the vessel--a much
more important and difficult matter than it would have been had she been
designed to navigate the ocean only.  By mid-day on Saturday the last
article had been received, including the personal belongings of the
travellers, the stowage was completed, and everything was ready for an
immediate start.

At three o'clock on the following Monday afternoon the voyagers met in
the smoke-room of the "Migrants'" as a convenient and appropriate
rendezvous, and, without having dropped the slightest hint to anyone
respecting the novel nature of their intended journey, quietly said
"Good-bye" to the two or three men who happened to be there, and,
chartering a couple of hansoms, made the best of their way to Fenchurch
Street railway station, from whence they took the train to Blackwall.
On emerging from the latter station they placed themselves under the
guidance of the professor, and were by him conducted in a few minutes to
the building yard.  The professor was the only one of the quartette who
had as yet set eyes on the vessel in which they were about to embark;
and the remaining three naturally felt a little flutter of curiosity as
they passed through the gateway and saw before them the enormous
closely-boarded shed which jealously hid from all unprivileged eyes the
latest marvel of science.  But they were Englishmen, and as such it was
a part of their creed to preserve an absolutely unruffled equanimity
under every conceivable combination of circumstances, so between the
whiffs of their cigars they chatted carelessly about anything and
everything but the object upon which their thoughts were just then
centred.

But the baronet's equanimity was for a moment upset when the professor,
after a perhaps unnecessarily prolonged fumbling with the key, threw
open the wicket which gave admission to the interior of the shed, and,
stepping back to allow his companions to precede him, exclaimed in tones
of exultant pride, in that broken English of his which it is unnecessary
to further reproduce:

"Behold, gentlemen, the embodiment of a scientist's dream--the _Flying
Fish_!"

The baronet advanced a pace or two, then stopped short, aghast.

"Good heavens!" he ejaculated.  "What, in the name of madness, have you
done, professor?  That huge object will _never_ float in the air; and I
should say it will be a pretty expensive business to get her into the
_water_, if indeed it is worth while to put her there."

The other two, the representatives of the army and of the navy, though
probably as much astonished as the baronet, said nothing.  They knew
considerably more than the latter about the capabilities of science; and
though they might possibly entertain grave doubts as to the success of
the professor's experiment, they did not feel called upon to express an
off-hand opinion that it would prove a failure.

The baronet might well be excused his hasty expression of incredulity.
Towering above and in front of him, filling up the entire space of the
enormous shed from end to end and from ground to roof-timbers, he saw an
immense cylinder, pointed at both ends, and constructed entirely of the
polished silver-like metal which the professor had called aethereum.
The sides of the ship from stem to stern formed a series of faultless
curves; the conical bow or fore body of the ship being somewhat longer,
and therefore sharper, than the after body, which partook more of the
form of an ellipse than of a cone; the curvilinear hull was supported
steadily in position by two deep broad bilge-keels, one on either side
and about one-third the extreme length of the ship; and, attached to the
stern of the vessel by an ingeniously devised ball-and-socket joint in
such a manner as to render a rudder unnecessary, was to be seen a huge
propeller having four tremendously broad sickle-shaped blades, the palms
of which were hollowed in such a manner as to gather in and concentrate
the air, or water, about the boss and powerfully project it thence in a
direct line with the longitudinal axis of the ship.  Crowning the whole
there was a low superstructure immediately over and of the same length
as the bilge-keels, very much resembling the upper works of a double-
bowed vessel such as are some of the small Thames river steamers.  This
was decked over, and afforded a promenade about two hundred feet long by
thirty feet wide.  And, lastly, rising from the centre of this deck
there was a spacious pilot-house with a dome-like roof, from the
interior of which the movements of the vessel could be completely
controlled.  The entire hull of the vessel, excepting the double-bowed
superstructure, was left unpainted, and it shone like a polished mirror.
The superstructure, however, was painted a delicate grey tint, with the
relief of a massive richly gilded cable moulding all round the shear-
strake and the further adornment of a broad ribbon of a rich crimson hue
rippling through graceful wreaths of gilded scroll-work at bow and
stern, the name _Flying Fish_ being inscribed on the ribbon in gold
letters.  Altogether, notwithstanding her unusual form, the aerial ship
was an exceedingly graceful and elegant object, and, but for her
enormous proportions, looked admirably adapted for her work.

Under other circumstances the professor would probably have been
seriously offended at the baronet's incredulous exclamation; but as it
was he was so confident of his success--so gratified and triumphant
altogether--that he could afford to be not only forgiving but actually
tolerant.  He therefore replied to Sir Reginald only with a mute smile
of amused compassion for the baronet's lamentable ignorance and
unbelief.

The professor's smile somewhat reassured Sir Reginald, though he still
continued to eye his novel possession very dubiously.

"You once spoke of Atlantic liners," he at last remarked to the
professor; "but surely this craft is larger than the largest Atlantic
liner afloat.  What are her dimensions?"

"She is six hundred feet long, by sixty feet diameter at the point of
her greatest girth," quietly replied the professor.

"And do you mean to tell me that such a monster will ever float in the
air?" ejaculated the baronet, his incredulity returning and taking
possession of him with tenfold tenacity.

"I do," answered the professor firmly, his self-love at length becoming
slightly ruffled.  "In that ship you shall to-night soar higher into the
empyrean than mortal has ever soared before; and after that you shall,
if you choose, sleep calmly until morning at the bottom of the English
Channel.  By and by at the dinner-table I will endeavour to demonstrate
to you, my dear friend, that it is her immense proportions alone which
will enable her to float in so thin a fluid as air."

"Very well," said the baronet in the tones of a man still utterly
unconvinced; "if you say so, I suppose I must doubt no more.  Now,
please, introduce to us the novel details of this wonderful craft of
yours."

"With pleasure," answered the professor, his brow clearing and a
gratified smile suffusing his countenance.  "A few minutes will suffice
to show you all that can be seen from the outside.  Those small circular
pieces of glass which you perceive let into the hull here and there are,
as you have no doubt already surmised, windows to enable us to observe
what is passing outside.  The larger windows at the bow and stern
protect powerful electric lamps, and are exclusively for the purpose of
lighting up our surroundings when we are at the bottom of the sea.
This,"--pointing to what looked like a circular trap-door in the bottom
of the ship, some fifteen feet from the centre on the port side--"is the
anchor recess; and this,"--pointing to a corresponding arrangement on
the starboard side--"is the door through which we shall obtain egress
from and access to the ship when she is at the bottom of the sea."

"Do you mean by that, that we are going to leave the ship and walk about
on the bed of the ocean?" asked the baronet.

"Certainly," answered the professor with a look of surprise.  "Our
exploration of the ocean's bed will probably be one of the most
interesting incidents of the expedition."

The baronet shrugged his shoulders and the professor continued:

"These bilge-keels serve a threefold purpose; they enable the ship to
rest steadily and firmly on the ground, as you see, which, from her
peculiar form, she could not otherwise do; they also form the sheaths,
so to speak, of four anchors to fasten her securely to the ground either
above or beneath the water--a most necessary precaution, believe me; and
they also add considerably to the cubical contents of the water-
chambers, with which they communicate, which will help to sink the ship
to the bottom.  Lastly, there is the propeller, the only peculiarities
of which are its great diameter--fifty feet--its enormous surface area,
and the fact that it is attached to the hull in such a way as to admit
of its being turned freely in any direction, thus dispensing with all
necessity for a rudder."

"Why have you left the hull unpainted, professor?  I suppose you had
some good reason for so doing?" remarked the colonel, chiming into the
conversation.

"I had no less than _three_ good reasons for leaving the hull of the
ship unpainted," answered the professor.  "In the first place, aethereum
is quite insensible to the attacks of air and water--it never oxidises,
and paint was therefore unnecessary for its preservation.  In the next
place, the quantity of paint necessary to cover that enormous surface
would weigh something considerable; and, as I have throughout the work
taken the utmost pains to keep down all the weight to the lowest ounce
consistent with absolute safety, I rejected it on that account.  And
lastly, I take it that we are anxious to avoid all unnecessary
observation; and I believe this cannot be better accomplished than by
preserving the brilliant metallic lustre of the hull, which, especially
when we are floating in mid-air, will reflect the tints of the
surrounding atmosphere, and so make it almost impossible to distinguish
us."

"Except when the sun's rays fall directly upon us, eh, professor?"
remarked Mildmay.

"In that case," returned the professor, "observers will see a dazzling
flash of light in which all shape will be indistinguishable."

"And we shall thus be mistaken for a meteorite," exclaimed the baronet
somewhat sarcastically.  "Excellent! admirable!  I really must
congratulate you, professor, upon the wonderful foresight with which you
seem to have provided for every possible and impossible emergency.  Now,
what is the next marvel?"

"There is nothing more down here.  We will now proceed on board, if you
please, gentlemen," said the professor; and he forthwith led the way up
a ladder which leaned against the vessel's lofty side.  This conducted
them as far as the upper curve of her cylindrical bilge, at which point
they encountered a flight of light ornamental openwork steps permanently
attached to the ship's side, up which they passed to the gangway in the
stout metal railing which served instead of bulwark, and so reached the
spacious promenade deck.  Looking down into the yard from this coign of
vantage, they seemed to be an enormous height from the ground; and the
baronet shrugged his shoulders more expressively than ever as he glanced
first below and then around him, realising more fully than ever, as he
did so, the immense proportions of his new possession.  He said nothing,
however, but turned inquiringly to the professor.

"This way, gentlemen, if you please," said the German, in answer to the
look; and he led them aft to what may be styled the quarter-deck.

"You spoke about the weight of a coat of paint on the hull just now, but
I see you have planked the deck.  The weight of all this planking must
be something considerable," remarked Mildmay.

"A mere trifle; it is only a thin veneering just to give a secure and
comfortable foothold," remarked the professor.  He paused at what looked
like a trap-door in the deck and said:

"We shall not be always soaring in the air nor groping about at the
bottom of the sea; we shall sometimes be riding on the surface; and I
have therefore thought it advisable to provide a couple of boats.  Here
is one of them."

He stooped down, seized hold of and turned a ring in the flap, and
raised the trap-door, disclosing a dark pit-like recess of considerable
dimensions.  Letting the flap fold back flat on the deck, the professor
then stooped down and grasped the handle of a horizontal lever which lay
just below the level of the deck, and drew it up into a perpendicular
position, and, as he did so, a pair of davits, the upper portions of
which had been plainly visible, rose through the aperture close to the
protecting railing, bringing with them a handsomely modelled boat
hanging from the tackles.  The professor deftly turned the davits
outward, and there hung the boat at the quarter in the exact position
she would have occupied in an ordinary ship.

"Bravo, professor; very clever indeed!" exclaimed Mildmay.  "But what is
the object of those four curved tubes projecting through the boat's
bottom?"

"Those tubes," answered the professor, "are the boat's means of
propulsion.  You see," he explained, "being built of aethereum, the boat
is extremely light, and draws so little water that a screw propeller
would be quite useless to her.  So I have substituted those tubes
instead.  One pair, you will observe, points toward the stern, and one
pair toward the bow.  The boat's engine is a powerful three-cylinder
pump, and it sucks the water strongly in through the tubes which point
forward, discharging it as powerfully out through those which point
astern; thus drawing and driving the boat along at a speed of about
twelve knots per hour, which is as fast, I fancy, as we shall ever want
her to go.  If you want to go astern the movement of a single lever
reverses the whole process.  There is a similar boat on the other side."

The boat having been returned to her hiding-place, the professor next
led his friends to the structure which occupied the centre of the deck.
It was a perfectly plain erection, with curved sides meeting in a kind
of stem and stern-post at its forward and after ends, with a curved
dome-like roof, several small circular windows all round its sides, and
no apparent means of entry.

"Why, how is this, professor?  You have actually built your pilot-
house--for such I suppose it is--without a door," exclaimed the baronet
with returning good-humour as he perceived that, even in the event of
the _Flying Fish_ failing to fly, he would still have a very wonderful
ship for his money.

"As you have rightly supposed, this _is_ the pilot-house," answered the
professor, with one hand pressing lightly against the gleaming wall of
the structure.  "But as to its being without a door, you are mistaken,
for there it is."

And as he spoke a door, hitherto unnoticed in the side of the building,
flew open.

"Why, you are a veritable magician, professor!  How on earth did you
manage that?" exclaimed the colonel.

"Easily enough," answered the professor.  "Just look here, all of you.
This is a secret door which it is necessary you should all know how to
open.  Now, there are four of us, are there not?  Very well; find the
fourth rivet from the bottom in the fourth row from the after end of the
building--here it is--push it to your left--_not_ press it; pressing is
no good--and open flies the door.  Push the rivet to the _right_ when
the door is open, and you shut it--so," suiting the action to the word.
"Now, Sir Reginald, let me see if you can open that door."

The baronet opened and closed the door without difficulty; and then the
other two essayed the attempt with similarly successful results.

"That is all right," commented the professor.  "Now step inside, please;
and close the door--so: when you want to open it from the inside you
simply turn this handle--so, and open it comes."

The quartette now found themselves inside the pilothouse, which proved
to be two stories in height.  On their right hand they beheld the
companion-way leading to the interior of the ship, with a wide flight of
stairs of delightfully easy descent, handsomely carpeted, and a
magnificent massive handrail and balusters of gleaming aethereum.  The
square opening to the companion-way was also protected by a similar
handrail and balusters, producing an exceedingly rich effect and seeming
to promise a corresponding sumptuousness of fitting in the saloons
below.

Just clear of the head of the companion staircase and leading up one
side of the pilot-house was another light staircase of open grid-work
leading to the floor above, which, at a height of seven feet, spanned
the building from side to side.  This floor was also of light open
gridwork, affording easy verbal communication between persons occupying
the different stories in the pilot-house.  Through this open grid-floor
could be seen various apparatus, the objects of which the new-comers
were naturally anxious to learn; and to this floor the professor
accordingly led his companions up the staircase.

The first object to which he directed attention was a long straight bar
of aethereum handsomely moulded into the form of a thick cable, and
finished off at the outer end with the semblance of a "Matthew Walker"
knot.  This bar issued at its inner end from a handsomely panelled and
moulded casing which extended down through both floors of the pilot-
house, presumably covering in and protecting the mechanism with which
the bar was obviously connected.

"This," said the professor, laying his hand on the bar, "is the steering
apparatus--the tiller as you call it--of the ship.  It moves, as you
see, in all directions, and communicates a corresponding movement to the
propeller--as you may see, if you will take the trouble to look out
through one of those windows."

The trio immediately did so, and saw, as the professor had stated, that
with every movement of the tiller, right or left, up or down, the
propeller inclined itself at a corresponding angle.  A handsome binnacle
compass stood immediately in front of the tiller, but the professor did
not call attention to it, rightly assuming that his companions were
fully acquainted with its use and purpose.

On the professor's right, as he stood at the tiller, was an upright
lever working in a quadrant, and communicating, like the tiller--and
indeed all the other apparatus--with the interior of the ship.

"This," said the professor, directing attention to the lever, "is the
lever which controls the valves of the main engines.  I have fashioned
and arranged it exactly like the corresponding lever in a locomotive.
Placed vertically, thus, the engines remain motionless.  Thrown forward,
thus, the engines will turn ahead.  And thrown backward, thus, they will
turn astern.  That is simple enough.  And so is this," directing
attention to a dial on his left hand which stood facing him.  The dial
had a single hand which was obviously intended to travel over a
carefully graduated arc of ninety degrees painted on the dial-face, and
which, in addition to the graduations, was marked in the proper
positions with the words "Stop;" "Quarter speed;" "Half speed;" "Full
speed;" and also with two arrows pointing in opposite directions marked
"On" and "Off" respectively.  Just beneath the dial was a small wheel
with a crank-handle projecting from one of its spokes, and on this
crank-handle the professor now laid his hand.

"This," he said, "regulates the valve which admits vapour into the
engine; and the dial-hand shows the extent to which the valve is opened.
Turn the wheel in the direction of the arrow marked `On'--thus, and you
admit vapour into the engine.  You will observe that, as I turn the
wheel, the hand on the dial travels over the arc and indicates the
extent to which the valve is open.  There; now it is fully open, and the
cylinders are full of vapour."  Then he quickly reversed the wheel and
sent the index hand back to "Stop," keeping a wary eye on his companions
as he did so.

"These are dangerous things to meddle with," he remarked apologetically.
"The engines are of one hundred thousand horse-power; and, full as the
ship now is of air at the atmospheric pressure, they would drive her
irresistibly along the ground and through all obstacles.  I must beg
that none of you will meddle with the machinery until you are fully
acquainted with its tremendous power."

"What is this pendulum-looking affair, professor?" asked the colonel,
pointing to a pendulum the point of which hung in a shallow basin-like
depression thickly studded with needle-points which the pendulum just
cleared by a hair's-breadth.

"That," explained the professor, "is a device for automatically
regulating the balance, or `trim' as you call it, of the ship when she
is floating in the air.  You will readily understand that when freed of
air, and thus deprived of weight, as it were, the most trifling matter
will suffice to derange her equilibrium; one of us, walking from side to
side, or from one end of the deck to the other, would very seriously
incline her from the horizontal, and thus alter the direction of her
flight, possibly with disastrous results; so I have devised this little
apparatus to prevent all that.  This pendulum, as you see, is so
delicately poised that it will instantly respond to the slightest
deviation from a horizontal position, and, swaying over one of these
needle-points, will send an electric current to the air-pump, causing it
to promptly inject a sufficient quantity of air into the proper chamber
to restore the equilibrium.  But, as we may desire occasionally to
direct the flight of the ship in an upward or a downward direction, I
have so arranged matters that the apparatus shall be thrown out of gear
when the tiller is sloped in either direction out of the horizontal; and
as we shall not require it when the ship is on or below the surface of
the ocean, I have here provided a small knob by pressing which inwards
the apparatus can also be thrown out of gear until it is again wanted."

"Excellent!" exclaimed the baronet.  "I must again congratulate you,
professor, on your truly wonderful forethought.  And what is this,
pray?"

"That," said the German, "is the controlling lever of the air-pump.
When we want to sink into the depths of the ocean, I thrust this lever
over--so; and the pump at once begins to pump air into the air-
chambers."

"_Out_ of them, I suppose you mean," interrupted the baronet.

"_Into_ them, I mean," insisted the professor.  "You must understand,"
he continued, noting the baronet's look of astonishment, "that air, like
everything else, has _weight_.  Feathers are light; but you may pack
them so tightly into a receptacle as to make them very weighty; and so
is it with air: the more air you force into a receptacle of given size
the heavier you make that receptacle; and, provided that both your
forcing apparatus and your receptacle are strong enough to endure the
tremendous pressure, you may at last force enough air into the
receptacle to sink it.  And that is precisely what we shall do; we shall
force air into our air-chambers until the ship is on the point of
sinking, and we shall then close the valves, stop the air-pump, and,
opening the sea-cocks of the water-chambers, admit water enough into the
ship to send her to the bottom like a stone."

"Well! you astonish me, I freely admit," gasped the baronet.  "This is
the first time I ever heard of a ship being sunk by filling her with
air.  And then the cool way in which you talk of our `sinking to the
bottom like a stone!'  I undertook this enterprise because I wanted to
experience a new sensation; and it appears to me that there are a good
many of them in store for me.  However, it is all right; go on with your
explanations, my dear sir."

"These," said the professor, indicating several levers marked with
distinguishing labels ranged all along one side of the pilot-house, "are
the levers opening and closing the valves of the air and water chambers,
and need no further description.  This," he continued, pointing to a
small box with a little knob projecting out of the top of it, "is the
apparatus for firing our torpedo shells."

The baronet glanced mutely round at his companions, and shrugged his
shoulders expressively, as who should say, "What next?"

The colonel and the lieutenant nodded approvingly, however, and the
latter said:

"That is capital, professor; we ought to have the means of fighting the
ship, if necessary; but I was beginning to fear you had overlooked that
matter, having seen no provision for anything of the kind.  But where is
your torpedo port? you omitted to point that out to us when we were
under the ship's bottom."

"There was nothing to show," replied the professor; "and I can explain
the matter just as well up here as I could have done when we were down
below.  The conical point which forms the extreme forward end of the
ship is solid and movable.  Under ordinary circumstances it remains
firmly fixed in position; but when it becomes necessary to fire a
torpedo-shell the solid point is made to slide in along a grooved tube
for a certain distance; the shell is then placed in the tube and fired,
when the solid point follows it out and becomes again securely fixed in
its former position.  In addition to this arrangement, I have two large
guns which can be worked through ports in the dining-saloon, and six
wonderful magazine rifles invented by a Mr Maxim, a friend of mine.
They are perhaps the most wonderful pieces of mechanism in the ship, for
when the first shot has been fired they will go on firing themselves at
the marvellous rate of six hundred shots per minute so long as you keep
them supplied with cartridges.  Then I have also provided an ample
supply of ordinary guns and rifles, swords, pikes, pistols, and in fact
everything we are likely to require for the purposes of sport or
defence.  These small knobs afford the means of lighting the electric
lamp in the lantern on the top of the pilot-house and those in the bow
and stern of the ship.  And that is all to which I think I need direct
your attention here at present.  Now, if you please, we will go down and
look at the machinery."

The party accordingly left the pilot-house and directed their steps
below by way of the grand staircase.  At the bottom of this they found
themselves upon a spacious landing magnificently carpeted, and lighted
at each end by a circular window in the side of the ship.  In front of
them as they descended the staircase, and at a distance of about twelve
feet from its base, a partition stretched from side to side of the ship,
evidently forming one of the saloon bulkheads.  Along the face of this a
series of Corinthian pilasters, supporting a noble cornice at the
junction of wall and ceiling, divided up the partition into a
corresponding number of panels, which were enriched with elegant
mouldings of fanciful scroll-work and painted in creamy white and gold.
In two instances, however, at points which divided the partition into
three equal parts, the panels were replaced by handsome massively
moulded doors of unpainted aethereum, imparting a very rich and handsome
effect.  These doors were, however, closed, and the curiosity of the
new-comers as to what was to be seen on the other side of them had to
remain for a short time ungratified.

Passing round to the back of the grand staircase (in which direction lay
the sleeping apartments, bath-rooms, and domestic offices) they found
themselves at the head of another staircase much narrower than the
former.  The one now before them was only about four feet wide, winding
cork-screw fashion round the tube which encased the communications
between the pilot-house and the engine-room, etcetera, and it was in its
turn encased in a cylindrical bulk-head, in which, on their way below,
they passed several doors giving access, as the professor explained, to
the different decks.

Winding their way downward for a considerable distance they at length
reached the foot of the staircase and passed at once through a doorway
marked "Engine Room."  The first sensation of those who now visited this
apartment for the first time was disappointment.  The room, though full
of machinery, was small, absurdly so, it seemed to them.  So also with
the machinery itself.  The main engines, consisting of a pair of three-
cylinder compound engines, though made throughout of aethereum, and
consequently presenting an exceedingly handsome appearance, suggested
more the idea of an exquisite model in silver than anything else, the
pair occupying very little more space than those of one of the larger
Thames river steamers.  The impression of diminutiveness and inadequacy
of power passed away, however, when the professor informed his
companions that the vapour would enter the high-pressure cylinder at the
astounding pressure of five thousand pounds to the square inch, and
that, though the engines themselves would only make fifty revolutions
per minute, the propeller, would be made, by means of speed-multiplying
gear, to revolve at the rate of one thousand times per minute in air of
ordinary atmospheric pressure.

"But how on earth do you manage to get your vapour up to that tremendous
pressure?" asked the colonel.

"Oh!" answered the professor, "that is a mere matter of mixing.
According to the proportions in which the crystals and the acid are
mingled together, so is the pressure of the vapour."

"And how do you mingle them together?" asked the lieutenant.

"This," said the professor, leading them up to a small boiler-like
vessel, "is the generator.  The crystals are placed in a hopper at one
end, and the acid in that small tank at the other, from whence they are
respectively conducted along tubes into a small well in the bottom of
the generator, where, their proportions being regulated by the size of
the tubes through which they pass, they mingle and generate a vapour
having a pressure of five thousand pounds on the square inch.  See,
there is the gauge, and it is now registering a pressure of five
thousand pounds."

"Good Heavens, man!" exclaimed the baronet, starting back; "you don't
mean to say that your generator is _now_, at this moment, subjected to
that enormous pressure of more than two tons per square inch?  Supposing
it exploded, what would become of us?"

"We should be consumed in an instant by the fierce heat of the liberated
vapour," replied the professor calmly.  "But," he continued, "you need
have no apprehension of an explosion.  When that generator was being
made I had a second one constructed at the same time, precisely similar
in every respect, and this second one I tested to destruction, with the
satisfactory result that it endured without distress a pressure of
thirty-five tons per square inch, showed the first signs of weakness
when it became subjected to a pressure of thirty-eight tons, and burst
at a joint when under a pressure of forty-three tons per square inch.
You may therefore feel quite satisfied that the generator is fully equal
to a continuous pressure of at least fifteen tons, instead of the trifle
over two which it will have to sustain."

The remainder of the machinery possessing no very startling or novel
features, it was passed by with merely an admiring glance at its
exquisite finish; and the quartette, leaving the engine-room, passed
round on the other side of the spiral staircase to a room marked "Diving
Room."

Entering this they found themselves in an apartment about twenty feet
square, one side of which was wholly occupied by four cupboards labelled
respectively "Sir Reginald Elphinstone," "Colonel Lethbridge,"
"Lieutenant Mildmay," and "Von Schalckenberg."

"This," explained the professor, "is the room wherein we shall equip
ourselves for our submarine rambles; and here," opening one of the
cupboards, "are the costumes which we shall wear upon such occasions."

The opened cupboard contained an ordinary indiarubber diving-dress, a
sort of double knapsack, a number of heterogeneous articles, and,
lastly, a suit of armour.

"Why, professor, what, in the name of all that is comical, is the
meaning of this?  Are we to walk forth among the fishes equipped like
the knights of old?" asked the baronet, pointing to the armour.

"I will explain," said the professor.  "In an ordinary diving-dress a
man can only descend to a depth of something like fifteen fathoms.
Instances have certainly occurred where this depth has been exceeded, a
Liverpool diver named Hooper having descended as far as thirty-four
fathoms, if my information is correct; but this was quite an exceptional
circumstance; and, as I have said, fifteen fathoms may be taken as the
average depth at which a man can move about and work in comfort.  The
reason for this limit is that beyond it the pressure of the water on the
exposed hands is so great as to drive the blood to the head and bring on
a fainting fit, if nothing worse; besides which, the volume of air
inside the dress necessary to counteract the outside pressure of the
water would be so great as to speedily result in suffocation.  Now, if
our explorations were limited to a depth of fifteen fathoms only they
would hardly be worth the undertaking; so I have devised these suits of
armour, in which we may safely explore the profoundest depths of the
ocean to which the _Flying Fish_ can penetrate.  The armour is, as you
see, composed of a number of small scales or plates of aethereum, and is
so constructed that, whilst it is perfectly flexible, permitting the
utmost freedom of movement to the wearer, it is also absolutely water-
tight and incompressible, no matter how great the exterior pressure to
which it is subjected.  The wearer of it will consequently be perfectly
protected at all points from the enormous water pressure; and he will be
able to breathe in comfort, his air being supplied to him at the normal
atmospheric pressure.  In equipping himself the diver will first don the
india-rubber diving-dress in the usual way.  Then he will assume this
double-haversack, the larger chamber of which, worn on the back, will
contain a supply of air, whilst the smaller of the two, worn on the
chest, is charged with a supply of chemicals for the purification of the
air after it has been breathed.  The two are connected together by a
pair of flexible tubes, as you may perceive, and the mere expansion and
contraction of the chest, in the act of breathing, sets in motion the
simple apparatus which produces the necessary circulation of air between
the two chambers.  Having secured this haversack in position the diver
next dons his body armour, and straps about his waist this belt, with
its electric lamp and its dagger.  The dagger, as you see, is double-
bladed; it has a haft of insulating material, and the blades have
connected to them this insulated wire at the point where the blades and
the handle unite.  You thus have a weapon which, on being plunged into
the body of a foe, not only inflicts a severe wound, but also
administers an electric shock of such terrible intensity as must result
in instant death.  The last portion of the armour to be assumed is the
helmet, on the top of which is securely fixed an electric lamp, which,
with the aid of the one at the belt, will give us, I imagine, as much
light as we are likely to need.

"Having donned our armour we pass out of this chamber into the next,
which I call the chamber of egress, carefully closing the door behind
us."

The professor, suiting the action to the word, ushered his companions
into the next chamber, closing the door behind him, and they found
themselves in a small room some ten feet square by seven feet in height.
This room, in common with the diving-room, was brilliantly lighted by
an electric lamp inclosed in a lantern of abnormally thick glass.

"Arrived here," continued the professor, "we are all ready to sally
forth upon our submarine explorations; all we have to do therefore is,
first to fill the chamber with water by means of this valve, then open
the trap-door and step forth upon the bottom of the sea."

As the professor said this he released the fastenings of the door, and
it fell down, forming a sort of inclined plane, over which they passed,
to find themselves once more on the solid earth, under the ship's
bottom, with the starboard bilge-keel rising like a wall of silver
before them.  They passed along the lane formed by this keel and the
cylindrical bottom of the ship, and then stepped back with one accord to
take another glance aloft at the huge bulk of the ship as she towered
high above them.  They now became conscious of the sounds of vigorous
hammering and of men's voices in the direction of the river gable of the
building shed, and on looking in that direction they saw that the
contractor, whom the professor had engaged for the purpose, was already
at work with his men removing the boarding which had hitherto concealed
the _Flying Fish_ from passers-by on the river, thus making a way for
the exit of the ship a little later on.

The little party had re-entered the hull by way of the trap-door, and
the professor had just made the fastenings once more secure, when, far
away aloft from somewhere within the recesses of the ship, they heard
the loud, sonorous, sustained note of a gong.

"Ah, that is good!" exclaimed Herr von Schalckenberg, rubbing his hands;
"that is the dinner gong; and I am hungry.  Come, my friends, to the
dining saloon, and let us partake of the first of, I hope, many pleasant
meals on board the _Flying Fish_."



CHAPTER FOUR.

THE NOVEL BEGINNING OF A SINGULAR VOYAGE.

On reaching the head of the spiral staircase the professor paused for a
moment to direct the attention of his companions to a long passage which
extended apparently along the middle of the ship to the fore-end of the
superstructure.  The passage was about five feet wide, and the ceiling
was of ground glass, through which a flood of light streamed brilliantly
down.

"In that direction," said the professor, "are to be found, first, the
kitchen, pantry, larder, and store-room; then next to them come my
laboratory and workshop, with the armoury and magazine on the opposite
side; then the quarters of the cook and the valet; next these again are
the bath-rooms and lavatories; and finally, at the extreme end of the
passage, there are the state-rooms or sleeping apartments, eight in
number--four for ourselves and four spare ones."

George, the valet--whose duties, however, on board the _Flying Fish_
were to be rather those of steward and general handy man--stood during
the progress of this brief explanation with his hand on the handle of
the saloon door; and now, as the professor turned and nodded, he flung
the door wide open and stood aside for the baronet and his friends to
enter.

They now found themselves in the dining-saloon, an apartment thirty feet
square and about ten feet high to the lower edge of the cornice.  The
walls, of unpainted aethereum, were broken up into panels by fluted
pilasters with richly-moulded capitals, each panel having a frosted
border covered with delicate tracery, whilst the central portion of the
panel was left plain and polished, serving the purpose of a mirror, in
which the room and its multiplied reflections on the opposite wall was
again reflected in a long perspective.  The floor was covered with a
rich Turkey carpet, into which one sank ankle deep; the chairs, sofas,
the massive sideboard, the wide table, in fact all the furniture in the
room, was constructed of aethereum and modelled after the choicest
designs, the upholstery being in rich embossed velvet of a delicate
light-blue shade.  The table glittered with a brilliant array of plate
and glass; and the entire apartment was suffused with rich, soft,
rainbow-tinted light, streaming down through the magnificent coved
skylight of stained glass, which served instead of ceiling to the
saloon.

"Superb!"

"Magnificent!"

"Exquisite!"

Such were the exclamations which burst from the professor's companions
as they paused to look about them and take in all the details of the
splendidly furnished and decorated apartment.  A dozen eager questions
rushed from their lips; but Herr von Schalckenberg was hungry, and the
dinner was served, he therefore contented himself with bowing profoundly
and pointing to the dinner-table.

"Come, gentlemen," exclaimed the baronet laughingly, "take your seats, I
beg.  It is evident that we have quite exhausted both the professor's
patience and his strength, and that we shall get no more information out
of him until both have been restored by a good dinner."

With which remark Sir Reginald set the example by taking his place at
the head of the table, as he was entitled to do in virtue of his
ownership of the _Flying Fish_.

The dinner was an admirable one, in all respects quite worthy the
exceptional nature of the occasion; and under its genial influence, and
that of the choice wines which accompanied it, the conversation soon
grew extremely animated.  The topic was, of course, the aerial ship and
the novel and interesting character of her various equipments.  The
professor speedily redeemed his afternoon's promise to the baronet, and
at length succeeded in completely convincing that hitherto sceptical
individual that, so far from the enormous proportions of the _Flying
Fish_ being detrimental to her, they constituted the principal basis
upon which he was justified in his anticipations of her success as an
_aerial_ ship.

Having at length made this perfectly plain, he was next called upon by
Lieutenant Mildmay to explain a certain peculiarity in the binnacle
compass, which had attracted that gentleman's notice and excited his
curiosity.

"I observed," he said, "that the compass-card bore round its outer rim,
at every quarter point, a small upright needle.  As everything on board
here, however apparently insignificant, seems to have its own especial
purpose, I should like to know the purpose which those small needles are
designed to serve."

"Ha, ha, my friend! so you noticed them, did you?  I quite expected
that, as a seaman, you very soon would," said the professor.  "Well, I
will tell you what they are.  They form part of a little device of mine
to render the ship self-steering, or, more correctly, to make the
compass itself steer her in any given direction.  Having noticed those
needles, you doubtless also noticed that across the `lubber's mark'
there was a small slit some six inches long in the side of the compass-
box?"

The lieutenant nodded.

"Good!" ejaculated the professor.  "Had you looked outside the box you
would also have observed two long slender arms pivoted close together,
their outer and longer extremities being united, and carrying a small
needle which travels, point downwards, along the arc of a circle.  Now
the action of the instrument is this.  Supposing that you wish the ship
to travel along, say, a southerly course, you manipulate the helm in the
usual manner until the south point of the compass-card swings round to
the lubber's mark.  The moment that these two accurately coincide you
pull toward you a small lever within easy reach of your hand, and the
two arms glide in through the slit in the side of the compass-box,
passing one on each side of the needle on the edge of the card, and your
apparatus is then connected up ready for action.  Now, so long as the
ship's bows remain pointed accurately to the south, the south point on
the compass-card continues coincident with the lubber's mark, and
nothing happens.  But should the ship deviate ever so slightly from her
proper course the heavy, yet sensitive, compass needle at once swings
round in sympathy; the small needle on the edge of the card moves the
two slender arms which embrace it; the downward-pointing needle at the
further extremity of these arms travels along the arc; and electric
communication is at once established with the steering machinery, which
promptly acts in such a way as to bring back the ship to her original
course."

"Capital!  Admirable!" ejaculated Sir Reginald and the lieutenant
together, the former continuing:

"Upon my word, professor, you are a veritable wizard--a magician with
powers exceeding those of the most potent of your brethren referred to
in the `Arabian Nights.'"

The professor made a laughing disclaimer.  "No, no, my dear sir," said
he, "I am no magician, but only a poor scientist.  Nevertheless, the
wonders of science far exceed those of the `Arabian Nights,' and will
well repay the man who cares to patiently study them."

Enlivened by conversation of a character so interesting to all present,
the sitting was prolonged to quite an inordinate length, and though no
one, except perhaps the professor, noted the fact, it was past midnight
when the adventurous quartette rose from the table, and taking their
wine and cigars with them, moved into the music-room, at the same time
dismissing the patient George for the night.

The music-room was a much larger apartment than the dining saloon,
being, like the latter, the full width of the superstructure, and
measuring forty feet between the fore and the after bulkheads.  It was
the next room abaft the dining saloon, and was even more elaborately
furnished and decorated than the latter.  The walls, divided up in the
same manner as those of the other apartment, were adorned with choice
pictures, and exquisite statues of frosted aethereum were grouped on
pedestals at frequent intervals all round the room.  A coved and
panelled ceiling of decorated aethereum sprang from the upper edge of
the richly moulded cornice; and a skylight of magnificent stained glass,
somewhat similar to that of the dining saloon, surmounted the whole.  A
grand piano and a noble chamber organ, both in superbly modelled
aethereum cases, occupied opposite sides of the apartment; a very
handsome clock, with a set of silvery chimes for the quarters and a deep
rich-toned gong for the hours, occupied a conspicuous position on a wall
bracket; chairs, couches, and divans of seductive shape and ample
capacity were dotted here and there about the rich carpet; and a
handsome table occupied the centre of the room, supporting and
reflecting in the silvery depths of its undraped top a noble epergne of
choice hot-house flowers.

"Why, how is this?" exclaimed the colonel as he sank into the luxurious
depths of a most inviting arm-chair; "my watch must be all wrong, and
your clock there is also wrong, professor; they both assert that it is
half-past twelve o'clock, yet the sun has not yet set," pointing aloft
to the skylight, through which a brilliant flood of sunshine was
streaming down into the magnificent apartment.

"The sun has not yet set?  Then we will soon make it do so," laughingly
remarked the professor, rising from his seat and approaching one of the
walls of the apartment, whilst the baronet and the lieutenant stared in
dismay at their own watch-faces.  The German began to manipulate a
couple of tiny knobs which occupied unobtrusive positions in the base of
one of the pilasters, and the sunlight gradually deepened into a rich
orange hue, then changed to a soft pearly grey, which gradually deepened
into a dim delicious twilight in which little was visible save the
pictured glass in the skylight above; then it gradually brightened
again, and presently a flood of glorious silvery moonlight streamed down
through the skylight and suffused the room.  Finally, with an
instantaneous change, the brilliant sunlight was again restored.
"Another wonder!" exclaimed Sir Reginald.  "How do you manage it,
professor?"

"Oh! that is a very simple matter," was the reply; "it is merely a
cunning arrangement of variously tinted glass shades interposed between
the electric light above the centre of the skylight and the mirrors
which reflect the light down through the stained glass into the room.
As you probably noticed when on the deck, there are no actual skylights
in the usual acceptation of the term; ours are only make-believes; but
they struck me as affording an agreeable means of lighting the saloons,
so I introduced them."

In further conversation, diversified by music, the time slipped rapidly
away; and at length the clock on the bracket proclaimed that it was two
hours after midnight.

As the sonorous strokes of the gong announced the fact, the professor
rose to his feet, and in a voice tremulous with sudden nervous
excitement, said:

"Gentlemen, the hour for our departure, the hour which is to witness the
success or failure of our grand experiment, has arrived.  The river and
the streets of the great city are by this time nearly or quite deserted;
and we may therefore hope that our movements will attract little or no
notice.  Are you ready?"

"Ready!" ejaculated the baronet; "of course we are, my dear sir.  Is not
this the moment to which we have all been anxiously looking forward for
more than two years?  Proceed, professor, we will follow you; and
whatever orders you may give us shall be obeyed to the letter."

"Come, then," said the professor; and he led the way through the dining
saloon and up the grand staircase to the lower compartment of the pilot-
house, and thence out on deck.

To their eyes, fresh from the brilliantly lighted saloons, the night
appeared intensely dark; but in a minute or two, becoming accustomed to
the gloom, they were able to perceive that the ladder had been taken
away from the ship's side, and also that the contractor had completed
his task of removing the planking at the river end of the shed, thus
clearing a way for the exit of the great ship.  They walked to the after
extremity of the deck, and from that point were not only able, in the
breathless stillness then prevailing, to distinctly hear the gurgle and
rush of the river, but also to dimly make out the shining, swirling
surface of the water as the flood-tide swept past them.

"The air is absolutely motionless," said the professor.  "No more
favourable moment could possibly have been chosen for the difficult task
of moving the _Flying Fish_ out of her present cramped quarters, and we
will at once avail ourselves of it.  Lieutenant, I will ask you to
return here presently on the `look-out,' as you sailors term it.  Your
duty will be to see that when we move out of the shed we do not come
into collision with anything.  Perhaps you, colonel, will kindly go to
the other end the deck, also on the `look-out;' and, as for you, Sir
Reginald, I must ask you to stand on the deck just outside the
pilothouse, to see that the electric lamp on the top of it does not come
into collision with the roof-timbers, and so drag the roof off the shed.
But as it is necessary that you should all become acquainted with the
working of the ship, you had better be with me in the pilot-house until
we are actually ready to move."

"Now," continued the professor when the quartette had made their way to
the upper floor of the pilot-house, which was moderately illuminated by
an electric lamp of small power, "the first thing to be done is to place
the tiller of the ship in a horizontal position, and thus bring into
action the automatic balancing gear.  So!  It is done.  The next thing
is to expel the air from the entire hull of the ship, excepting, of
course, the comparatively insignificant portion reserved for habitation,
and this I do by injecting vapour into the several compartments.  The
vapour drives out the air, and then, condensing like steam, creates, if
required, a perfect vacuum.  This large wheel controls the valve which
we now want to open.  I turn it this way, so--and now we shall see what
will happen."

Two large dials were attached to the side of the pilothouse, close
together; and upon these the professor now intently fixed his gaze.  The
index-hands of both were seen to be moving.  A period of perhaps half a
minute elapsed, and then the professor, suddenly shutting off the
vapour, went over and closely inspected both dials.

"Good!" he exclaimed, after a single keen glance at each of them.
"Gentlemen, let us congratulate each other.  Our experiment is a SIGNAL
SUCCESS!"

"How do you know that, professor?  How can you tell?" eagerly asked his
companions.

"Look at these two dials; they will tell you," replied the professor.
"This dial," tapping one with his finger, "indicates the weight of the
ship, or the pressure with which she bears upon the ground.  This one,"
indicating the other, "shows the pressure of air inside the hull of the
ship.  The first, as you see, shows that the ship is now pressing upon
the ground with a force of less than a single ton--in other words, she
now weighs less than one ton.  The air-gauge shows that there is still
an air pressure of six pounds per square inch inside the hull, and we
therefore have, as I expected we should, a large margin of buoyancy.
Now, lieutenant, do me the favour to turn on the vapour once more, very
cautiously.  Steady!  _Stop_!  There, Sir Reginald, the index has
reached zero, and your ship is now as nearly as possible without weight;
and if a man were now underneath her, he might, notwithstanding her
gigantic proportions, easily raise her upon his shoulders.  Now comes
the delicate part of our operation.  To your stations on the deck
quickly, gentlemen, if you please."

The professor's companions, just a trifle excited, perhaps, hurried away
to their posts, and the scientist was left alone.  The circular windows
in the sides of the pilothouse were all left open, and in through them
presently floated the voice of the lieutenant shouting:

"All ready abaft, professor."

"All ready at this end," replied the colonel.

The professor reversed the engines, turned on the vapour _very_
cautiously indeed, and simultaneously, with the engines below only just
barely moving, the huge propeller began to whirl round at a speed of
some sixty revolutions a minute.

A breathless pause of perhaps two seconds followed, and then the
professor, his forehead damp with nervous perspiration, heard:

"Hurrah!  She's away!" from the lieutenant.

"She moves; she moves!" from the colonel.

And, "By Jove, she is actually moving!" from the baronet.

Slowly but surely the _Flying Fish_ backed out of the building-shed,
until nearly half her immense length projected beyond the walls.  Then
the voice of the baronet was heard exclaiming:

"Ho! stop her!  The electric lamp will not clear the roof, I am afraid.
Can you give us a little light on the subject, professor?"

By way of reply the professor pressed a knob, and the lamp itself
flashed its dazzling light upon the scene, when it became apparent that
the ship had gradually risen from the ground, bringing the top of her
lamp just above the level of the last tie-rod of the roof.

"Can you drop her a little?  Six inches will do it," said the baronet.

The professor opened the air-valve and the ship at once began to settle
down.

"So!  That will do; all clear.  You may go astern again now as fast as
you please," said the baronet.

Once more the great propeller began to revolve, and presently the
baronet, from his position under the foremost end of the pilot-house,
remarked:

"Now she is all clear, professor; the whole of the pilothouse is outside
the shed.  A bold dash astern now and we shall be clear fore and aft in
another moment."

The professor extinguished the electric lamp; gave the wheel connected
with the vapour-valve another turn; the engines increased their speed;
and the great ship at once shot rapidly out over the stream and clear of
everything.  Then the professor stopped the engines, turned a thin
stream of vapour into the air chambers, and the huge fabric began to
slowly rise perpendicularly in the air.  Herr von Schalckenberg waited
until he saw that they were fairly above the level of the roofs on both
sides of the river; then he left the pilot-house and, joining the
baronet on the deck outside, said, in a voice of undisguised exultation:

"Well, Sir Reginald, what think you _now_ of the _Flying Fish_?"

"I think her, professor, a wonderful creation of a still more wonderful
man.  I see that we are steadily rising in the air, as you assured us
would be the case, but I cannot yet fully realise the fact; I feel like
a man in a dream; you must give me time to become familiar with this new
marvel--this new triumph of science.  But there can no longer be any
doubt as to the success of your labours; and I accordingly offer you my
most hearty thanks and congratulations."

The colonel and the lieutenant also hastened to offer theirs, and then
the whole party sauntered to the side, and, leaning upon the guard-rail
which took the place of bulwarks, stood gazing upon the scene below.
Not that there was very much to see; the sky was obscured by a thin
almost motionless canopy of cloud, and the moon, in her last quarter,
had not yet risen; the darkness was therefore profound.  At the same
time it was novel and interesting to watch how, as the huge ship rose
steadily higher in the air, the long lines of lighted gas-lamps in
street after street became visible, until gradually the whole of the
great city lay spread out below them like a map, with the thoroughfares
indicated by faint twinkling lines of fire.  And, as they continued to
rise, the various disjointed sounds which, even at that early hour,
pervaded the city, began to reach their ears: the rumbling of a wagon or
the rattle of a cab over the stone-paved streets, the barking of a dog,
the crow of some unnaturally wakeful rooster, the clank of shunting
trucks at one or another of the many goods stations dotted here and
there all over the metropolis, the distant whistle and rattle of a train
speeding along in the open country beyond; all floated up to them with
almost startling distinctness at first, then fainter and fainter, until
at length they died completely away as the _Flying Fish_ gradually
attained a higher altitude.  Then they entered the bank of cloud which
overspread the city, and the air, which had hitherto been warm, became
suddenly chill and damp.

"Now, my friends," said the professor, "there will be little or nothing
more to see until we again descend; I therefore propose that we return
to the pilot-house, shut ourselves in, and at once test the soaring
powers of the ship by rising to the highest attainable altitude."

"Agreed!" said the baronet.  "But why shut ourselves in?"

"Because," answered the professor, "it will not only grow rapidly colder
as we rise, but, if we remain outside, we shall also find it
increasingly difficult to breathe as we reach the more rarefied air;
whereas, by remaining inside, we shall be sheltered from the cold and
shall be able to breathe the denser air which we shall take up with us."

They accordingly entered the pilot-house, shutting the door after them,
and closing all the windows; then the professor turned a full jet of
vapour into the air-chambers for a moment, producing a perfect vacuum
therein, and the ship at once began to mount into the ether with greatly
accelerated speed, as they could easily see by watching the barometer,
the bulb of which, completely protected, was situate outside the walls
of the pilot-house.

It was no very easy matter for cold to penetrate through the thin yet
obdurate walls of the pilot-house; but by the time that the barometer
had fallen to fifteen inches the voyagers experienced a distinct
sensation of chilliness, whilst the windows of the pilot-house were
thickly coated with a delicate frost tracery.  Still the barometer
continued to fall steadily, though not so rapidly as at first,
indicating that the ship was still soaring upward; and with every inch
fall of the mercury the professor became an increasingly interesting
study of mingled delight and anxiety.  At length the mercury, still
falling, registered a height of eleven inches only, and the professor
gave vent to a great sigh of relief.  And when it further dropped to ten
inches he could no longer contain himself.

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "rejoice with me.  The conquest of the
mountains is ours.  We are now as nearly as possible on a level with the
topmost peak of Everest, the most lofty projection on the earth's
surface; and in due time I hope we shall have the unique felicity of
planting our feet on that as yet untrodden spot, and of leaving a record
to that effect behind us."

At length the mercury fell to a little below eight inches, and there it
stopped; the limit of the _Flying Fish's_ buoyancy was reached.

The professor stood intently regarding the barometer tube for some time;
then he turned and said to his companions:

"Gentlemen, behold the indisputably lowest reading of the barometer
which man has ever witnessed, and which indicates that we are at this
moment farther from our mother earth than mortal has ever journeyed
before.  Humboldt and Bonpland ascended Chimborazo to a height of
eighteen thousand five hundred and seventy-six feet.  Gay-Lussac rose in
his balloon to the much higher elevation of twenty-three thousand feet,
only to be eclipsed by your own countryman, Green, who soared to the
astounding height of twenty-seven thousand six hundred feet.  But it was
left for _us_, my friends, to achieve the crowning feat of aeronautical
science, by attaining to the extraordinary altitude of thirty-four
thousand six hundred feet, or more than six and a half miles of
perpendicular elevation above the sea-level.  _Now_, Sir Reginald, what
think you of your latest acquisition, the _Flying Fish_?"

"I think her by far the most wonderful creation of which I have ever
heard or read, and," (with a bow to the professor) "every way worthy of
the truly remarkable man to whom she owes her existence.  If her power
to penetrate the hitherto unexplored depths of the ocean is at all
commensurate with her ability to reach the higher regions of the air, I
foresee that our voyage is likely to be fruitful in startling incident
and in the discovery of many hitherto unsuspected secrets of nature.
Now, what do you propose that we shall next do, professor?"

"I propose," said von Schalckenberg, "that, having tested the _Flying
Fish's_ capabilities of merely rising into the air, we should now
ascertain what she can do in the way of _navigating_ the atmosphere;
after which we will try her powers as a submarine ship.  The lowest
depression in the English Channel is to be found in a submarine valley
called the `Hurd Deep;' it is situate about six miles north of the
`Casquets,' and lies ninety-four fathoms (or five hundred and sixty-four
feet) below the surface of the water.  I propose (subject to your
approval) to make for this spot and there sink to the bottom, taking
advantage of our presence there to make a first trial of our diving
armour.  Does this meet with your approval?"

The baronet and his companions thought it a very capital idea, and the
professor took immediate steps for carrying it out.  Opening a case he
produced therefrom a chart of the English Channel, and, directing his
companions' attention to the spot which he proposed to visit, requested
Lieutenant Mildmay to lay off the course and measure the distance in a
straight line.  The latter was found to be about one hundred and fifty
miles.

"Which distance," remarked the professor, "I expect we shall accomplish,
in the present calm state of the atmosphere, in about an hour and a
quarter.  This high rate of speed will necessitate our remaining in the
pilothouse; but it will, perhaps, be worth while to put up with that
temporary inconvenience on the present occasion, since we have so
exceptionally favourable an opportunity of testing the actual speed of
the ship through the air.  If, however, you prefer to be on deck in the
open air, we can of course moderate our speed sufficiently to render
such a mode of travelling pleasant."

It was unanimously decided, however, to remain inside and give the speed
of the ship a fair trial.  The professor accordingly turned the vapour
into the engines, slowly at first, but in gradually increasing volume,
until they were revolving at full speed, and the ship's head was pointed
in the proper direction, the automatic steering gear being at the same
time thrown into action to test its capabilities.  This done the
professor opened the main air-valve, gradually admitting a certain
quantity of air into the ship's interior, and she at once began to drop
once more earthward.

"We will descend to within about a thousand feet of the sea level," said
the professor.  "This will restore us to a more genial temperature, will
give the propeller a denser atmosphere in which to work, and will also
enable us to see somewhat of the country over which we are flying;
whilst our elevation will be ample to take us clear of everything.
Leith Hill, nine hundred and sixty-seven feet in height, is the greatest
elevation at all near our path; but we shall pass some three miles or so
to the westward of it, if the air remains calm; and Saint Catherine's
Point, over which we shall pass, is only seven hundred and seventy-five
feet high.  So that we have nothing to fear."

In a few minutes the _Flying Fish_ had dropped to within the proposed
distance of the earth; and, on clearing the windows of the accumulated
frost, it was discovered that the moon (then in her third quarter) had
risen and was suffusing the earth with her feeble ghostly light, which,
slight as it was, enabled the voyagers to perceive that they were
skimming through the air at a tremendous speed.  The engines, though
working at their full power, were perfectly noiseless; and the
propeller, though revolving at a rate of fully one thousand revolutions
per minute, caused not the slightest perceptible vibration in the hull
of the ship.  A loud humming sound, however, proceeded from it, audible
even above the rush of the air against the sides of the pilot-house.

Leith Hill was soon passed, the waters of the Channel--distinguished in
the faint light only by a thin tremulous line of glimmering silver under
the crescent moon--were sighted, and, almost before they had time to
realise the fact, they had skimmed over the anchorage at Spithead,
across the Isle of Wight, and were floating above the waters of the
Channel.  By this time the eastern sky had begun to pale perceptibly
before the coming dawn; the lights of Saint Catherine behind them and
the Casquets ahead gleamed with steadily diminishing power in the
gathering daylight; the half-dozen or so of ships and steamers in sight,
one after the other extinguished their signal lamps; and, just as they
reached their destination and settled lightly as a snow-flake upon the
glassy surface of the water, up rose the glorious sun, flashing his
brilliant beams over land and sea, and awakening all nature into light
and life once more.

As the _Flying Fish_ alighted on the surface of the water, the professor
pulled out his watch and remarked, with evident satisfaction:

"One hundred and fifty miles in just one hour and a quarter!  That is
good travelling, and proves the speed of our ship to be exactly what I
estimated it would be.  We will now set the force-pump to work; and I
hope, that by the time we are ready to descend, that brilliant sun will
have enshrouded our movements in a concealing mist.  We are surrounded
by fishing-boats, as you see, and I have no doubt that we have also been
observed by the light-keepers on the Casquets.  It will never do to
disappear before so many curious eyes; they would be filled with horror
at the supposed catastrophe.  In the meantime we may as well go out on
deck to enjoy the fresh morning air.  As for me, I propose to indulge in
the luxury of a swim."

The main engines had, in the meantime, been stopped, and the force-pump
put slowly in motion, so that the submersion of the hull might be
sufficiently gradual to escape notice.

Five minutes later the professor and his three companions were
gambolling round the ship like so many porpoises--or dolphins, if they
would prefer the latter metaphor--enjoying to the full the invigorating
luxury of their bath in the cool, pure sea-water.

By the time that they were on board again and dressed, the intelligent
George had arranged for them on deck a nice little light breakfast of
chocolate, biscuits, and fruit, for which their swim had given them an
unbounded relish.  The meal was partaken of at leisure, and followed by
a cigar, over which they dawdled so long that the _Flying Fish_ was
submerged to the deck before the last stump had been reluctantly thrown
away.  The mist which the professor had prognosticated having,
meanwhile, gathered sufficiently to cloak their movements, a cast of the
lead was taken and the ship was found to be in ninety fathoms of water.
The professor, for reasons of his own, deemed this sufficiently near the
deepest point to justify an immediate descent.  They accordingly entered
the pilot-house forthwith, closing the door securely after them--the
air-pump was stopped, the sea-cock communicating with the water-chambers
was opened, and the _Flying Fish_, with an easy imperceptible motion,
sank gently beneath the placid waters, to rest, a minute or two later,
on a bed of gravel at the bottom of the Channel.

"Now," said the professor, looking at his watch when the ship had fairly
settled into her strange berth, and had been securely anchored there,
"it is just eight o'clock.  We are all somewhat fatigued, and our bath
and breakfast have prepared us nicely to enjoy a few hours' repose.  I
therefore propose, gentlemen, that we retire to our sleeping apartments
until two o'clock p.m.  George shall call us at that hour and have a bit
of luncheon ready for us, after which we shall have ample time to test
our diving apparatus before dinner."

This proposal met with a very cordial reception, and was duly carried
out, with the result that, half an hour later, the four adventurous
voyagers were sleeping as calmly in their novel resting-place as though
they had been accustomed from their earliest infancy to take their
repose at the bottom of the sea.



CHAPTER FIVE.

A SUBMARINE EXCURSION.

At the appointed hour the imperturbable George, who never could be
betrayed into the slightest exhibition of astonishment at finding
himself in any extraordinary situation which he might happen to be
sharing with his somewhat eccentric master, duly aroused the four
sleepers, and when they were ready, laid luncheon before them with the
same indomitable _sangfroid_ which he would have exhibited had the
transaction been conducted on _terra firma_.

The meal over, the professor led the way below to the diving chamber,
where the adventurous four carefully donned their diving dresses,
inclusive of the armour which Sir Reginald felt so strongly disposed to
ridicule.  As this was the first occasion of inducting themselves into
their novel costume, they were rather a long time about it; but when
once they were fairly encased, they were fain to admit that, strange as
might be their appearance, they felt exceedingly comfortable.  The
professor was the last to assume the dress, having busied himself in the
first instance in assisting the others; but at length all was ready, and
they filed into the exit chamber, carefully closing the door behind
them.  This chamber was illuminated by an electric lamp, the light of
which clearly revealed the whereabouts of the sea-cock, and of the
fastenings to the trap-door, all of which the professor pointed out to
his companions, at the same time explaining the method of working them.
The sea-cock was then opened, and the chamber began to slowly fill with
water.

"Now," explained the professor, "please listen to me.  If now, or at any
future time, either of you should experience the slightest sensation of
discomfort as the water rises round you, all you have to do is simply to
open this air-cock, which communicates with the air-chambers, and the
condensed air will at once rush in and expel the water again; then close
the sea and air cocks; open this relief valve, which will allow the
condensed air to disperse itself in the habitable portions of the hull,
and you can at once open the door of communication to the diving
chamber, and disencumber yourself of your dress, remembering always to
close the door behind you.  Now, do either of you feel at all
uncomfortable?"

The exit chamber was by this time full of water, and its occupants were,
therefore, completely submerged, and subject to the same pressure of
water as they would be outside, but the armour proved fully equal to its
work in every respect, and its wearers were able to move with just as
much freedom and ease as if they had been on dry land.  They accordingly
replied to the professor's inquiry with a brisk negative.

"And can you hear distinctly what I say?" continued the professor.

They replied that they could hear every word perfectly, only realising
when the question was asked that they were completely sheathed in metal
from head to foot, and that, consequently, the fact of their being able
to hear at all was somewhat singular.

"That is all right," exclaimed the professor.  "I thought it would be
convenient if we could communicate freely with each other under water,
so I introduced a couple of small microphones into each helmet, hoping
they would answer the purpose.  Mine are simply perfect, but I was
anxious to know if yours were also.  Now, if you are quite ready I will
open the door."

The next moment the trap-door fell open, and a great black aperture
yawned before them.

"Light both your lamps," exclaimed the professor, "and pick your
footsteps.  Remember, you are about to tread on strange ground."

The professor led the way, his armour-clad figure looming up black and
gigantic against the two overlapping discs of illuminated water before
him, and the other three followed closely in his footsteps.  On emerging
from the trap-door they turned sharp to the left, and made their way
toward the bow along the tunnel-like passage between the ship's bottom
and the starboard bilge keel.  This was soon traversed, and they then
found themselves on a tolerably firm, level, gravelly bottom.  Emerging
from underneath the ship's bottom, they now extinguished their lamps for
a moment by way of experiment, and found that so clear was the water
that even at the great depth of ninety fathoms it was not absolutely
dark, a sombre greenish blue twilight prevailing in which the hull of
the ship towered above them vast and shadowy, yet with tolerable
distinctness.  This twilight, however, was strongly illuminated at both
ends of the ship by the powerful electric lamps at the bow and stern,
all of which the professor had taken the precaution to light before
descending to the diving chamber.

"Those are our beacons," said the professor, pointing to these lamps,
"and we must be exceedingly careful not to stray beyond the reach of
their rays, otherwise we might experience great difficulty in finding
our way back to the ship.  Are you all pretty comfortable in this great
depth of water?  We are now five hundred and forty feet beneath the
surface of the sea, or three hundred and thirty-six feet deeper than man
has ever reached before.  Why, if we were to accomplish nothing more
than this, we have already achieved a great triumph!  Now, let us make
our way toward the deepest spot in this submarine valley; I have an idea
that we shall see something curious when we reach it.  This way,
gentlemen; our course is about due west, and we cannot well lose our way
if we descend the slope which seems to commence yonder."

The little party pressed forward, experiencing no inconvenience or
difficulty whatever, save that of making their way through water of such
a density as that which enveloped them, and soon reached the edge of a
rather steep declivity, evidently leading down to the lowest part of the
depression.  Before venturing down this declivity they paused to glance
backward, and saw that, though the ship herself had become invisible in
the sombre twilight, all the electric lights were distinctly visible,
the very powerful one on the top of the pilot-house especially gleaming
like the illuminated lantern of a lighthouse.  So far, therefore, all
was well; they were still within range of the lights, and they at once
turned and plunged fearlessly into the depression.  They had not far to
go, the sides of the depression being steep, and in about two minutes
they found themselves at the bottom, and standing before an immense
confused heap of wreckage of almost every imaginable description.
Shattered stumps of spars, waterlogged and weighed down with a thick
incrustation of barnacles, the accumulated growth of years of immersion;
part of the hull of a ship, so overgrown with "sea grass" as to be
distinguishable as such only from the fact that the channels and channel
irons with their dead-eyes, and even the frayed ends of the shroud
lanyards still remained attached; a twisted and tangled-up mass of iron
rods which looked as though it might at some distant period have been
the paddle-wheel of a steamer, and near it the evident remains of a
boiler and some machinery; the beam of a trawl-net, and bales, boxes,
packing-cases, barrels, and, in short, every conceivable description of
covering in which ships' cargoes are usually stowed were mixed up in
inextricable confusion with heaps of coal, large stones, and other
anomalous substances.

"Just as I anticipated," exclaimed the professor, pointing to the heap
and addressing his companions.  "And this, I expect, is the sort of
thing which we shall see in every depression of the ocean's bed which we
may visit.  All these matters have been swept hither and thither over
the ground by the action of the tidal and other currents, until they
have happened to drift over this spot, and here they have finally
settled owing to the inability of the currents to move them up the steep
sides of the depression.  Let us walk round the heap; we may see
something of interest before we have completed the circuit."

And so they did, though the interest was hardly the kind of which the
professor had been thinking when he spoke.  For, whilst standing on the
opposite side of the heap, contemplating the remains of an ancient and
grass-grown wreck, they were startled by the appearance of a sharp
snake-like head with a pair of fierce gleaming eyes which was suddenly
protruded from a gap in the ship's side, and in another moment the
creature--a conger-eel of truly gigantic proportions--emerged from its
hiding-place, and, possibly attracted by the brilliancy of the electric
lights which the party carried, swam boldly toward them.

"What a horrible monster!" ejaculated the colonel, at the same moment
that Lieutenant Mildmay, struck with the savage look of the creature,
exclaimed:

"Why, I believe the brute means to attack us!"

"And, by Jove, here come some more of them!" exclaimed the baronet,
pointing to the hole from which the creature had emerged.

"Draw your daggers, gentlemen!" shouted the professor.  "And be not
dismayed; they and our armour are quite sufficient for our protection."

It was perhaps just as well that the professor had sufficient presence
of mind at that moment to say what he did; for his companions, though
their courage had been proved a thousand times before, were now in a new
and strange element to which they had scarcely had time to accustom
themselves; and, moreover, the aspect of the fierce fish as they rushed
forward with open jaws, disclosing their formidable teeth, was
sufficiently weird and uncanny to at least momentarily dismay the
stoutest heart.

Lieutenant Mildmay's anticipation as to the intentions of the fish
proved quite correct.  On they came, some thirty or forty in number; and
before the attacked could quite recover from their confusion they found
themselves fairly in the clutches of the snake-like creatures.  The
attack was made with the utmost determination and ferocity, the eels
twining themselves so powerfully about the bodies of their foes that it
was almost impossible for the latter to move hand or foot; whilst the
sharp teeth rasped strongly but ineffectually against the scales of the
aethereum armour.  The fight, however, though fiercely waged on the part
of the assailants, was soon over, a single stroke of the keen double-
edged dagger--as soon as the assailed could get their hands free--
proving sufficient to instantly destroy the individual fish upon which
it happened to fall.  But so fierce were the eels that the conflict
ended only with the slaughter of the last of them.  The fish were of
truly enormous size, two or three specimens measuring, as nearly as
could be estimated, fully eighteen feet in length, whilst none were less
than ten feet long.  The tour of exploration was then completed without
further adventure; the powerful electric lights of the ship enabled them
to find her without difficulty the moment that they climbed up out of
the depression; and they made good their return with no worse result
than that of excessive fatigue due to their unwonted efforts in forcing
their way through so dense a medium as water of ninety fathoms depth.

So novel an experience as theirs had that day been naturally furnished
the chief topic of conversation at the dinner-table; the professor
especially entertaining his companions with many interesting anecdotes
of strange adventures which had happened to, and curious sights
witnessed by divers at various times and places.  At length, during a
lull in the conversation, he said:

"There still remain two trials to which the _Flying Fish_ must be
subjected before we can say that we are fully acquainted with her
powers, namely, a trial of her speed through the water when fully
submerged; and a trial of her behaviour as an ordinary ocean-going ship.
And these trials, I think, should--if you approve, Sir Reginald--be
carried out before we do anything else."

The baronet gave his willing assent to the professor's proposal; and it
was finally arranged that the trials, or, at all events, one of them,
should take place on the morrow.

It having been arranged that early rising should be the order of the day
throughout the voyage, they were aroused at seven o'clock on the
following morning, and sat down to breakfast at eight prompt.  By nine
o'clock the meal was over, and the party, pipe or cigar in mouth,
mustered in the pilot-house.  Here the first thing the professor did was
to produce a chart, to which, on spreading it open on the table, he
called Lieutenant Mildmay's attention, saying:

"Being a seaman by profession, you are undoubtedly the most skilful
navigator of the party; and I therefore propose--with Sir Reginald's
full approval, which I have already obtained--to confide the navigation
of the _Flying Fish_ to you.  Now this,"--making a pencil mark on the
chart--"is our present position; and this,"--pointing to another pencil
mark off Cape Finisterre, which presented the appearance of having been
very carefully laid down--"is the point to which I wish you to navigate
us in the first instance."

"Very good," said Mildmay.  "I undertake the charge with pleasure.  Only
I must stipulate, that when making long passages you will rise to the
surface occasionally, in order that I may be enabled to take the
observations necessary to verify our position."

"Of course, of course," answered the professor.  "Now, are we all ready
to start?"

An answer in the affirmative was given; and von Schalckenberg thereupon
moved the lever which actuated the simple machinery controlling the four
anchors in the bilge keels.  The ship being thus released from the
ground, he next opened the cocks connecting the air and water chambers;
a stream of compressed air at once rushed into the latter, forcing out a
certain quantity of water, and the ship began to rise.

"We will so adjust our position that the top of the lantern surmounting
the pilot-house shall be submerged to a depth of six fathoms; at which
depth we shall not only be enabled to pass clear of all ships, but shall
also, if the water be clear, be enabled to see pretty well what is
before and above us," said the professor, fixing his eyes upon a gauge
before him.  "There," he continued, closing the air-cocks as the index
pointed to six fathoms, "now we shall do very well.  Are you ready to
set the course, Mildmay?"

"A run of six hundred and fifty miles, upon a west-south-west course,
will take us to about the spot you have indicated," answered Mildmay.

"Which is a trifle less than five and a half hours' run, if our speed
under water is equal to what it was through the air.  But I anticipate
that we shall do better than that; the resistance of water is
considerably greater than that of air to the vessel's passage through
it, I admit; but I anticipate that this will be more than
counterbalanced by the greater power of the propeller in the denser
fluid.  We shall soon see."

So saying, the professor set the engines in motion, and the _Flying
Fish_ began to glide smoothly yet soon with marvellous rapidity through
the water.

"My surmise was correct, you see," said the professor some ten minutes
afterwards, as he pointed to another gauge on the wall of the pilot-
house.  "We are now running steadily at a speed of one hundred and fifty
miles per hour; and we have already travelled twelve miles from our
starting-point.  The gauge is, as you see, self-registering, and shows
on that piece of paper the exact distance run through or along the
surface of the water (but not through the _air_) between any two given
points.  When the ship's course is altered, or you desire for any other
reason to commence the register afresh, all you have to do is, press
that ivory knob, and the instrument will draw a line across the paper
and, at the same moment, spring back to zero."

The water, at the depth at which they were travelling, proved to be
almost as transparent as crystal, of a dark olive-green tint beneath
them, merging by imperceptible gradations to a faint greenish-blue
above; the surface being discernible by the shifting lace work of gold
incessantly playing over it where the sun's beams caught the ridges of
the faint rippling wavelets raised by the languid summer breeze.  Even
small objects, such as medusae, and fragments of weed floating in mid-
sea, were distinguishable at a considerable distance; and fishing-boats
could be clearly made out at the distance of a mile.  A very novel and
curious effect was witnessed when objects floating on the surface (such
as ships, fishing-boats, or aquatic birds) came into view, the submerged
portions of them being as clearly defined as though they were floating
in air, whilst the parts _above_ the surface were wavering and
indistinct.  A flock of diving gulls, for instance, which they passed at
no great distance, presented the curious spectacle of little more than
dark dots furnished with pairs of quickly-moving webbed feet whilst they
floated on the placid surface; but directly a bird dived its whole body
became distinctly visible, with a long stream of air-bubbles trailing
behind it.

At length it became apparent that they were approaching a large fleet of
ships making their way up channel.

A smile passed over the professor's features as he gazed out at them,
and turning to his companions he remarked:

"I feel mischievously inclined this morning.  I think we will give the
crews of those ships a little surprise, and furnish them with a new
topic for conversation."

"Ah, indeed!" said the baronet.  "How do you propose to do it?"

"By rising to the surface in the midst of the fleet.  Our engine power
is quite sufficient, I believe, to send us to the surface or to plunge
us several fathoms deeper than we now are without our interfering with
the water chambers or altering in any way the weight of the ship.  There
is a nice clear space just ahead, with ample room in which to show
ourselves and to make a downward plunge again beneath that large ship,
the barnacle-covered bottom of which seems to tell of a long voyage
through tropic seas.  Now take up your stations of observation,
gentlemen, and note the consternation which our unexpected appearance
will produce."

The professor's companions placed themselves at the windows of the
pilot-house, and Herr von Schalckenberg at the same moment suddenly
pressed the end of the tiller vertically downward.  Obedient to the
helm, the _Flying Fish's_ sharp snout immediately swerved upward, and
with a tremendous swirl and commotion of the water the great ship rushed
to the surface, throwing half her length out of the sea, only to
disappear again the next moment with a graceful plunging motion and a
still greater disturbance of the water by her immense rapidly revolving
propeller.

A single swift glance around them was all that the travellers were able
to obtain of the state of affairs above water; but that sufficed to show
them that their appearance, sudden though it was, had attracted a
considerable amount of notice.  They saw that the _Flying Fish_ had
broken water in the very centre of a large fleet of ships, most of which
were making their way up channel under every stitch of canvas they could
spread before a very light westerly air.  Many of these ships were
evidently, from their weather-beaten appearance, traders from far-
distant foreign ports; and their crews, taking advantage of the
beautifully fine weather and smooth water, were either occupied on
stages slung over the sides in giving the hulls a touch of fresh paint
to brighten up their appearance previous to going into port, or aloft,
scraping, painting, and varnishing the spars, or tarring down the
rigging, with a similar object.  All eyes seemed to be directed toward
the apparition which had made its sudden appearance in their midst; and
the shouts of astonishment and dismay evoked by that sudden appearance
were distinctly audible to the occupants of the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-
house.  The hurried way in which the crew of the large ship immediately
ahead of them sprang to their feet and scrambled in over the bulwarks
from the stages on which they were working, or slid down the freshly-
tarred backstays to the deck as they saw the immense object rushing
directly toward them, was particularly amusing, and drew a hearty laugh
from the beholders on board the _Flying Fish_.  Another moment, and the
cause of all this commotion was plunging fathoms deep beneath the keel
of the last-mentioned ship, to reappear on the surface a minute later,
beyond the farthest outskirts of the fleet.  A judicious manipulation of
the helm kept the _Flying Fish_ this time on the surface for perhaps a
quarter of a minute, just long enough, in fact, to satisfy the wondering
beholders that their eyes had not deceived them, when she once more
disappeared, this time finally, from the view of the fleet.

"That escapade of ours will produce a tremendously sensational paragraph
for the newspapers, and we must keep a look-out for it," said the
colonel.  "I wonder what they will make of it!"

Sure enough, the paragraph appeared in due course, to the following
effect, as copied from a cutting which is still preserved in the
professor's scrap-book:--

Appearance Of A Gigantic Sea Monster In The English Channel.

Extraordinary Story.

"On Wednesday morning last, the 27th instant, a fleet of some hundred
and fifty sail of vessels was off the Start and about in mid-channel,
making its way to the eastward before a light westerly air, the weather
at the time being fine, the water smooth, and the atmosphere perfectly
clear.  A portion of the crews belonging to several of the craft in
question were at work in the rigging when their attention was attracted
by a curious commotion which suddenly appeared on the surface of the
water at a considerable distance to the eastward.  The disturbance was
in the form of a long wedge-like ripple, the appearance being very
pronounced and distinct at its forward or pointed extremity, but less so
at its rear end, where it spread widely out and became gradually merged
and lost in the gentle ripple caused by the wind.  It was travelling
directly towards the fleet at a speed far exceeding that of the fastest
express train, and it bore all the appearance of being the `wake' of
some enormous body moving at no great distance beneath the surface.
While the seamen were still watching it in wonder and perplexity,
mingled with no little alarm, it had reached the fleet, the rippling
swell spreading out on each side and curling over into a breaker which
dashed against the sides of the several vessels, causing the smaller
craft to rock and toss perceptibly.  It clove its irresistible way to
the very centre of the fleet, where there happened to be a large open
space of water, and here there suddenly shot into view above the surface
a gigantic fish, the length of which is variously estimated by those who
saw it as from four hundred to eight hundred feet, with a girth of
between one and two hundred feet.  The creature, apparently startled at
finding itself in the midst of so many vessels, immediately dived below
the surface again, passing directly beneath the keel of the barque
_Olivia_, of London, from Bangkok, William Rogers master.  The crew of
this ship had a most distinct view of the monster, as it broke water at
not more than half a cable's length (or some three hundred feet) from
them, and immediately afterwards shaved the keel of the ship so closely
as almost to touch it.  Captain Rogers, who was on deck at the time,
describes the creature, and his description tallies perfectly with that
of the other witnesses, as being somewhat like a saw-fish, without the
saw, in general shape, but with a proportionately longer and more
sharply pointed head, in which _four_ eyes, two in the upper and two in
the lower part of the head, were distinctly seen.  The body was a
beautiful silvery white, glistening in the sun like polished metal.  On
the back of the immense fish was a curious flat protuberance, above
which rose another in the form of a dome-shaped hump, with, if we may
venture to repeat so incredible a story, eyes all round it, and
surmounted by an object having a very marked resemblance to a silver
crown.  This extraordinary creature had no fins so far as could be seen,
but propelled itself solely by its tail, which it moved with such
wonderful rapidity as rendered it utterly impossible to detect the shape
of it.  The creature was evidently an air-breather, for it had no sooner
completely cleared the fleet, which it did in about one minute, the
distance travelled in that time being fully three miles, than it rose
once more to the surface, remaining there for perhaps half a minute,
evidently for the purpose of getting a fresh supply of air, when it
again dived and was seen no more."



CHAPTER SIX.

IN SEARCH OF A SUBMERGED WRECK.

To return to the _Flying Fish_.  It was exactly two o'clock p.m. when
Lieutenant Mildmay announced that, according to his "dead reckoning,"
they were now on or very near the spot indicated on the chart by the
professor, and that, if there was no objection, he should like to rise
to the surface in order to obtain the astronomical observations
necessary to verify the ship's position.  The engines were accordingly
stopped, and the water being ejected from the water chambers, the
travellers once more found themselves above water, advantage being taken
of the opportunity to throw open the door of the pilot-house and step
out on deck.

The first discovery made by them was that a moderate breeze was blowing
from the westward, with a corresponding amount of sea and a very long
heavy swell, which, however, to their great gratification, affected the
_Flying Fish_ only to a very trifling extent.  When end-on to the sea
she pitched a little, it is true, but when broadside-on she simply rose
and fell with the run of the sea, being as completely free from rolling
motion as though she had still been on the stocks.

Their next discovery was that a large steamer was in sight, some seven
miles distant; and, whilst they stood watching the way in which the
craft plunged along over the heavy swell, pitching "bows under"
occasionally, she suddenly altered her course and steered direct toward
them, her crew having apparently only that moment sighted the _Flying
Fish_, and being evidently in great perplexity as to what she could
possibly be.

"Be as quick as you can with your observations, Mildmay, and let us get
under water again," said the baronet.  "We shall perhaps be expected to
explain who and what we are if that steamer gets within hail of us, and
I am not particularly anxious to do that."

The sights were taken, and, whilst the steamer was yet some five miles
distant, the _Flying Fish_ quietly sank once more beneath the waves;
doubtless to the intense astonishment of those who were making such
haste to get alongside her.

Rapidly, yet steadily, and with a perfectly level deck, the craft sank
lower and lower, the light diminishing momentarily, until it at length
vanished altogether, and the darkness became so intense that it was
impossible for the occupants of the pilot-house to discern each other;
whilst the silence which prevailed around them was first oppressive and
then awe-inspiring in its intensity.

Suddenly a light shuffling sound arose within the pilot-house, and in
another moment the inky depths through which they were descending became
brilliantly illuminated with a clear white penetrating light, in which
every detail of the ship's hull fore and aft stood out distinctly
visible, whilst here and there, above, below, and on either side of
them, a momentary gleam revealed the presence of some startled and
hastily retreating denizen of the deep.  The professor had lighted up
the electric lanterns, the especial purpose of which was to illuminate
the sea around the ship, leaving the interior of the pilot-house still
in darkness, in order that its occupants might enjoy, to the fullest
extent, the novelty of the scene thus suddenly revealed to them, and
also that, on reaching the bottom, they might the better be able to
distinguish external objects.

Lower and lower sank the _Flying Fish_, and at length, after what seemed
to the travellers an almost interminable descent, she reached the
bottom.

"Now, gentlemen," exclaimed the professor, with some slight evidences of
excitement in the tones of his voice, "look around you, and see if you
can discover anything unusual in our neighbourhood."

The persons addressed did as they were requested, the professor himself
also peering eagerly out of each of the pilot-house windows in turn, but
without result; the electric lamps, though they brilliantly illuminated
the scene on all sides for fully fifty yards, and rendered objects
distinguishable for at least three times that distance, revealed nothing
but a plain completely covered with rocks and boulders, some of which
were of enormous size, and all thickly overgrown with sea-weed.

"What is it you expected to find down here, professor?" asked the
colonel, when it had become perfectly evident that nothing but rocks lay
within their range of vision.

"The hull of a ship," answered the professor.  "She foundered on or near
the spot indicated by me, and cannot be far off; unless, indeed, we are
out in our reckoning.  Have you worked out your calculations, Mildmay?"

"Not yet," answered the lieutenant, "but I soon will do so if you will
oblige us with a little light inside here."

"Ah, true!  I had forgotten," murmured the professor apologetically, and
he lighted the lamp which hung suspended above the table in the pilot-
house.

The lieutenant sat down and rapidly worked out his observations, with
the resulting discovery that they were exactly two miles north-east of
the spot they were seeking, having doubtless been swept that much out of
their proper position by the tide.  The _Flying Fish_ was accordingly
raised some fifty feet from the bottom, her engines were once more set
in motion, slowly this time, however, and the ship's head laid in the
proper direction, the occupants of the pilot-house stationing themselves
at the windows and peering out eagerly ahead on the look-out for the
object of their search.

The engines being set to work dead slow and stopped at intervals when
the speed became too high, the speed of the _Flying Fish_ was kept down
to about twelve knots per hour, at which rate she would occupy ten
minutes in traversing the required distance.  She had been under weigh
exactly nine minutes when Mildmay exclaimed:

"Sail ho!  That is to say, there is a large object of some kind dead
ahead.  Port _hard_, professor, or we shall be into it."

The professor, who was not absolutely ignorant of nautical phraseology,
promptly ported his helm and at the same moment stopped the engines, by
which manoeuvre the _Flying Fish_ glided close past the object so slowly
that it was easily distinguishable as a huge pinnacle of rock.

They were now on the exact spot indicated by the professor on the chart,
but nothing in the slightest degree resembling the hull of a ship was in
sight.  Rocks in the form of pinnacles, huge fantastic boulders, and
boldly-jutting reefs appeared all round, as far as the powerful lamps of
the ship could project their rays, but no ship was to be seen.  They
rose some fifty feet higher, in order to see over the more lofty rocks,
some of which intercepted their view, but with no more successful
result.

"There is no ship here, professor," at last remarked the baronet, after
all hands had carefully inspected the whole of the ground within their
ken.  "Are you quite sure of the accuracy of your information?"

"My information has reference only to an _approximate_ position; the
ship is hereabout--within a few miles of this spot--and I considered
that our best chance of discovering her lay in coming here first, and,
if necessary, prosecuting our search with this position as a starting-
point."

"Very good.  Then, as the object of our quest is manifestly not here, I
propose that we proceed with our search at once."

By way of reply the professor put the helm hard over, and once more set
the engines slowly in motion, thus causing the ship to travel in a
circle about the spot; all hands going, as before, to the windows of the
pilot-house on the look-out.

The circle described by the _Flying Fish_ was a very small one--not more
than two hundred feet in diameter--and the inmates of the pilot-house
were therefore able to carefully examine every inch of ground within its
circumference.  One complete circuit having been accomplished without
result, the helm was very slightly altered, and the ship then went on in
a continually widening spiral which must necessarily at length take her
to the object of her search, if indeed it actually existed.

That it did so was ultimately demonstrated, the professor himself being
the first to make its discovery.

The wreck, when first sighted, was distant about one hundred yards on
their starboard hand, and only just within range of the circle of
electric light.  The ship's head was at once turned in that direction,
the engines being at the same time stopped, to permit of a very gradual
approach.

All eyes were of course intently fixed upon the strange object; and they
had neared it to within about one hundred feet, when Lieutenant Mildmay
exclaimed in a low, awe-struck voice:

"Just as I suspected!  It is the _Daedalus_!"

"Yes," replied the professor very quietly; "it is that most unfortunate
ship.  And now, gentlemen, with your permission I will anchor the
_Flying Fish_, and pay a visit--unaccompanied--to the wreck."

It was evident, from the extreme gravity of the professor's demeanour,
that his proposed visit was prompted by some other motive than that of
mere idle curiosity; his companions therefore simply bowed in token of
acquiescence, and permitted von Schalckenberg to follow undisturbed the
bent of his own inclinations.

The _Flying Fish_, meanwhile, had been caused to descend to the bottom,
to which she was at once secured by her four grip-anchors; immediately
after which the professor, with a somewhat hurried and incoherent
apology, left his companions and descended to the diving-room.

Left to themselves, the trio occupying the pilot-house had ample leisure
to note the position and surroundings of the ill-fated steamer.

She had settled down upon a flat ledge of level rock, and rested, keel
downwards, in a perfectly upright position, having apparently recovered
herself whilst settling down.  She was greatly damaged, both in hull and
rigging; the spar-deck and forecastle being swept away, and her main
deck blown up in midships, very possibly through the explosion of her
boilers.  Her bowsprit and mizzen-mast were gone, as was also her fore
topmast; and the mainmast, with topmast and all attached, was leaning
aft, and so far over the side that the observers would not have been
surprised to see it fall at any moment.  Loose ropes were trailing in
all directions; and the tattered remains of sails still hung from some
of the yards and stays, swaying occasionally in a slow, weird, ghostly
manner, with the mysterious intermittent under-currents of the sea.

The trio were still discussing the particulars of the sad disaster,
which, on a stormy September night, had resulted in the drowning of
nearly five hundred people, and the plunging of the ship herself to the
depths wherein they had so strangely found her, when the figure of the
professor, clad in his suit of diving armour and dwindled in apparent
dimensions by his great distance below them, was seen to emerge from the
black shadow of the _Flying Fish's_ hull and make his way slowly and
laboriously over the rocky bottom toward the wreck.  A couple of minutes
sufficed him to perform the short journey; and; scrambling up the side
by the aid of some of the dangling gear, he entered the poop cabin and
disappeared.

The party in the pilot-house finished their chat; and then sauntered
down into the music saloon, of which they had seen nothing since the
night of their departure from London--actually only two nights before,
but they had since then been so satiated with novel sights and
experiences that it really seemed as though at least a month had elapsed
since they last passed the threshold.  Here they beguiled the time so
effectually with music, vocal and instrumental, that it was not until
George appeared announcing dinner that it occurred to either of them
that the professor had been out of the ship nearly three hours.

"Where can the man be?  Surely some accident must have befallen him!"
exclaimed the baronet, starting up in alarm.

"Not necessarily," replied the colonel.  "The professor is pretty well
able to take care of himself.  It is much more probable that he has
discovered some object of exceptional interest on board the wreck, or
has fallen into a scientific reverie as to the actual cause of the
disaster--the cause, I mean, from a _scientist's_ point of view.  Sound
the gong, George; water is a good conductor, and he may possibly hear it
and be awakened to a consciousness that time flies."

The gong was accordingly struck, and the three companions hastened to
the pilot-house to watch for results.  The call proved effectual, for in
less than five minutes afterwards the professor made his appearance on
the deck of the wreck, soon afterwards rejoining his friends on board
the _Flying Fish_ in the vestibule outside the saloons.  He carried in
his hand a small compact package, which he deposited carefully on the
sideboard, and then, with a much more cheerful mien than he had worn
when setting out upon his solitary journey, took his accustomed place at
the table, apparently quite prepared to do full justice to the meal
which was about to be served.

The soup and fish were discussed in silence; a glass of wine was then
imbibed with much apparent enjoyment, and this unlocked the professor's
lips.

"I feel it to be due to you, gentlemen--and more especially to _you_,
Sir Reginald--to offer some explanation of the motive which influenced
me in my proposal that we should come hither," he remarked, setting his
wine-glass down on the table.  "I had a threefold object in view.  In
the first place, I felt curious to know whether it would be possible to
find, _at the bottom of the sea_, an object the position of which is
only approximately known.  In the second place, I was anxious to secure
a relic.  And in the third place, I was almost equally anxious to
recover a most valuable document which I was convinced had gone down in
the unfortunate _Daedalus_.  With regard to the first-named object, you
have already witnessed our complete success.  I have also been
successful in the remaining two."

The speaker paused here; but it was so evident from his manner that he
had not yet said all he had to say upon the subject that his companions
contented themselves with mere simple monosyllabic murmurs of polite
congratulation, and then awaited in silence a further communication.

The professor continued silent and evidently plunged deep in a somewhat
sombre reverie for several minutes; then he lifted his head and said
somewhat hesitatingly:

"You will perhaps be surprised to learn that my life has not been left
wholly ungilded by the halo of romance.  Five-and-twenty years ago, when
Science had perhaps not obtained so tight a grip upon me as she now has,
it was my fate to meet the loveliest woman I have ever beheld.  She was
an only daughter, of English parentage; and chance threw us somewhat
more intimately together than is usual with people who become acquainted
casually and informally.  I fell blindly, madly in love with this
peerless creature; and, gentlemen, I have since--and alas, too late!--
had reason to believe that, strange as such a circumstance may appear to
you, she did not altogether escape a reciprocal passion.  But my
studious habits had brought with them one serious disadvantage--I was
indescribably diffident and shy; so much so that when the time arrived
that I must either unbosom myself or let her pass away out of my life,
perhaps for ever, I found myself without the courage to make the
necessary declaration.  We parted without a word of love having passed
between us.  She remained single for five years--to give me an
opportunity of declaring myself, as I now know--and then married a man
far more worthy of her than I could ever have proved.  Gentlemen, her
only child, a lad of fifteen, went down with the ill-fated _Daedalus_;
and the mother is to-day breaking her heart because, by some perverse
chance, she does not possess a single memento of her lost boy.  My visit
to the wreck, however, will remove that source of grief; for I shall
have the melancholy satisfaction of transmitting to the dear lady, by
the first safe conveyance which offers itself, the watch and chain and
the signet-ring which he wore when he bade her a final farewell.  In the
moment that I conquered the last difficulty connected with the
construction of this ship, and felt assured that she would prove a
success, I vowed to myself that, by the courtesy of our amiable host, I
would avail myself of the means she would offer for securing some
memento of that poor lad; and I have to-day at once performed my vow and
passed through scenes of such surpassing horror as probably no mortal
has ever witnessed before, and which language has no words to describe.

"The third object of my visit to the wreck is before you in the shape of
yonder package.  It is a manuscript book filled with jottings and
memoranda, the result of some thirty years of profound research in the
many bypaths of science.  It was the property of an officer of the ship
with whom I had corresponded for many years; and, knowing how greatly I
coveted the book, he left it me in his will, probably little thinking,
poor fellow! that it was fated to go with him to the bottom of the sea.
On being made acquainted with the circumstances of his death, and also
with his bequest, I surmised at once that the precious volume must have
been in his immediate possession when the ship foundered.  And having
visited him on board, as well as had occasion to notice the place in
which the book was ordinarily kept, I had very little difficulty in
placing my hand upon it."

"I suppose matters are in a very terrible state on board the wreck?"
asked the baronet.

"So bad," was the reply, "that, knowing what I now know, I cannot think
of any motive powerful enough to induce me to repeat my visit.  I had
two very strong motives for going on board the ship; and, as each
successive horror presented itself, I thought, surely there can be
nothing worse than this; and I pressed onward, only to encounter greater
and still greater horrors at every step.  But I would not go there again
even to achieve what I have achieved to-day."

"Ah!" said the baronet, "I have a great curiosity to see what the ship
herself looks like after such a tremendous catastrophe; but, if the
sights to be witnessed on board her be one-tenth part so bad as your
words would lead one to suppose, I would not go near her for the world."

"Nor I," said the colonel.

"Nor I," added Mildmay.

"You are wise, gentlemen," remarked the professor.  "I can quite
understand your curiosity; but, were you to gratify it, your pleasure
would be effectually destroyed for the remainder of the voyage."

"That reminds me to ask the question, Where are we going next?" said Sir
Reginald.

The professor shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands, palms
upwards.

"The world is all before you where to choose," he replied.  "You have
only to name a place, and it will be strange indeed if we cannot get
there."

"Well, for my own part, I am of opinion that it will be wise for us to
devote this trip as far as possible to the visiting of such spots as it
is difficult or impossible to reach by any other means.  What say you,
gentlemen?"

This from the baronet.

The others expressed their full coincidence in this opinion.

"Very well, then," continued Sir Reginald; "my proposal is that, as the
days are now at their longest, and this is therefore the most favourable
time for such an expedition--and as, moreover, the _Flying Fish's_
stores have as yet been barely broached--we make the best of our way
forthwith _to the North Pole_, there to enjoy a little of the choice
sport which we may reasonably hope to find among animals that have never
yet seen the face of man."

"A most admirable proposal, and one which we are especially well adapted
to successfully carry out," exclaimed the professor enthusiastically.
The colonel and Mildmay also gave their cordial assent to the plan.

"Very well, then; that is settled," remarked von Schalckenberg.  "Now,
to revert for a moment to the subject of the wreck.  You have not been
on board her, as I have; but, even with the comparatively distant view
you have had of her, I think you must have seen that she is injured
beyond all possibility of repair; to say nothing of the fact that she is
lying in a spot from which it would be difficult--quite impossible,
indeed, without our assistance--to recover her.  Now, it has occurred to
me that, all things taken into consideration, it would be a good deed to
destroy her.  What say you, gentlemen?  It would afford us an excellent
opportunity for making trial of one of our shells."

"Destroy her, by all means," said the baronet.

"I can see no possible objection," observed the colonel.

"Nor I," remarked Mildmay.  "As to assisting in her recovery, I would
not stir so much as my little finger to do it; she has already drowned
some five hundred human beings, which is quite enough mischief for one
ship."

"Quite so," coincided the professor.  "Then we will do the deed after
dinner."

Accordingly, half an hour later, the party rose from the table and made
their way to the pilot-house, where the professor delivered a little
lecture on the mode of firing the shells.  Then, accompanied by the
colonel, who had proffered his assistance, von Schalckenberg proceeded
to the fore end of the ship to make the requisite arrangements.  It
being a first experiment, the preparation occupied fully ten minutes--or
ten times as long as he should allow himself in future, the professor
remarked.  Then, all being ready, a return was made to the pilothouse;
the anchors were withdrawn from the ground, and the _Flying Fish_ was
got under weigh.  The monster circled once or twice round the doomed
wreck, seeking the most suitable point of attack, which having been
decided upon, the sharp nose of the submarine ship was pointed straight
at the _Daedalus_, and the professor touched a knob.  At the same
instant--so it appeared, so rapid was the discharge--there was a
blinding flash of light on board the wreck, a terrific concussion, but
no sound, and the wreck _vanished_; that is the only word which
adequately describes the suddenness and completeness of her destruction.
The concussion was so violent that it jarred the _Flying Fish_
throughout the whole of her vast frame; indeed, but for her tremendous
strength she would in all probability have herself been destroyed.  As
it was, no damage or harm whatever was done on board beyond throwing the
four occupants of the pilothouse somewhat violently to the floor, and
terrifying the cook and the hitherto sedate George almost out of their
senses.

But perhaps even they were less frightened than were the captain and
crew of a small Levant trader which happened at the moment to be almost
directly above the scene of the explosion.  All hands felt the jar; the
watch below frantically sprang on deck under the impression that they
had collided with another vessel; and the skipper, who happened to be
standing near the taffrail, was horrified beyond expression to see an
immense cone of water some thirty feet high rise out of the sea just
astern of his vessel, to fall next moment with a deafening splash and an
accompanying surge which tossed the little vessel as helplessly about
for a moment or two as though she had been the merest cockle-shell.  It
took that skipper nearly half an hour to fully recover his faculties;
and when he did so, his first act was to go below and solemnly make an
entry in his official log to the effect that, on such and such a date at
such an hour, in latitude and longitude so and so, the weather at the
time being fine, with a moderate breeze from S.W., the schooner _Pomona_
had experienced a terrific shock of earthquake with an accompanying
disturbance of water which nearly swamped the ship.  This entry he
signed in the presence of the mate, secured that officer's signature to
it also, and then, reviving his courage with a glass of grog stiff
enough to float a marlinespike, he retired to his bunk.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

EN ROUTE FOR THE NORTH POLE.

The destruction of the wreck having been effected, the _Flying Fish_
moved a few miles northward until she reached a small level sandy patch
affording a good berth for the night, and there she was once more placed
upon the ground and anchored.

Nothing whatever occurred to disturb the repose of the travellers; and,
after passing a tranquil night, they assembled at the breakfast table
punctually at eight o'clock on the following morning.  An hour later,
having finished their meal, the quartette rose, and made their way to
the pilot-house, where preparations were at once commenced for an ascent
to the surface.  On this occasion the professor being anxious that the
other members of the party should become conversant with the method of
handling the ship, the baronet placed himself at the tiller--from which
post the entire apparatus controlling the movements of the vessel could
be reached--and, with von Schalckenberg at his elbow to correct him in
the event of a possible mistake, the ascent was begun.  This, from
prudential motives, was slowly accomplished, and at a distance of five
fathoms from the surface a pause was made for the purpose of taking a
good look round and thus avoiding all possibility of inflicting damage
on passing ships in the act of breaking water.  It was well that this
precaution was observed; for their first glance revealed to them the
bottom of a large steamer close at hand and coming rapidly straight
toward them; and had the _Flying Fish_ continued to rise she would have
broken water directly under the stranger's bows.  As it was, by backing
astern a few yards they gave the steamer good room to pass; and it was
both interesting and novel to see the great mass go plunging heavily
past with the long sea-grass waving and trailing from her bottom, and
the great propeller spinning rapidly round, now completely immersed, and
anon lifted almost entirely out of the water.  Once clear of her, the
_Flying Fish_ sank to a depth of ten fathoms, and after a ten-mile run
at full speed, once more paused to reconnoitre.  This time the sea was
clear for at least a mile in every direction--which was as far as they
could see in the then condition of the water--and they at once rose to
the surface.

The horizon proved to be clear in every direction save to the southward,
in which quarter the upper spars of the steamer they had so lately
encountered were still visible.  The wind was blowing a moderate breeze
from S.S.E.--almost a dead fair wind for the _Flying Fish_--the weather
also was delightfully fine and clear; it was therefore promptly resolved
to take to the air once more and thus wing their way northward.

The valves of the air-chambers were accordingly thrown open to their
full extent, when, with a screaming roar, the highly compressed air at
once rushed forth, and in less than half a minute the huge bulk of the
ship was lying poised as lightly as an air-bubble on the surface of the
heaving water.  The main vapour-valve was then cautiously opened, and a
partial vacuum produced, when, as easily as a sea-bird, the _Flying
Fish_ rose at once into the air.  The engines were next turned ahead,
the helm adjusted, and the northward journey was fairly begun.

The wind was blowing at the rate of about fifteen miles an hour, and
nearly dead fair; the engines were therefore set so as just to turn
round and no more; this gave the ship a speed of about twelve knots
through the air, which, added to the rate of the wind, gave a total
speed of twenty-seven knots over the ground--or rather over, the water--
and at this pace they calculated that, after making the necessary
allowance in their course for the set of the wind, they would reach the
Irish coast, in the vicinity of Cape Clear, at about five o'clock the
next morning.  Their reason for not travelling faster was that, as the
baronet said, they were on a pleasure cruise, and having been pent up
inside the hull for fully thirty-six hours, they felt that a few hours
in the open air would be an acceptable change.

They pursued their flight throughout the day at an altitude of only a
thousand feet above the sea, except when they encountered a ship--which
happened only once during the hours of daylight--and when this occurred
they rose, on the instant of sighting her, to the highest attainable
distance, in pursuance of their resolve to attract as little attention
as possible, descending again to their former level as soon as they had
passed beyond her range of vision.  At this latter elevation they were
able to enjoy to the full the health-giving properties of the pure sea-
breeze, and to revel in a prospect--though it was only that of the
restless sea--of nearly forty nautical miles on every side; the horizon,
that is to say, forming a circle of little less than eighty miles
diameter round about them.  And though it may be hastily thought that,
with a sea bare of craft there was little or nothing to interest the
travellers, this was by no means the case; for at their height the water
was clear and transparent for a long distance below the surface, and the
gambols of the fish, of which there were great numbers visible,
including several schools of porpoises and a solitary whale, could be
seen distinctly, affording a most interesting sight; and when they grew
tired of this they promenaded the spacious deck, or lounged about in
chairs, smoking their cigars or pipes, and discussing with much
animation their future prospects.  And now, for the first time, a fact
in connection with the automatic balancing apparatus brought itself
under their notice.  It was this.  They found that, let them walk about
the ship where and as much as they chose, the balance of the ship always
remained perfect; but the little jets of air which, at their every
movement, were admitted into the hull to maintain its equilibrium, soon
had a perceptible influence on the vessel's buoyancy, causing her to
slowly but steadily descend toward the surface of the sea, thus
necessitating periodic visits to the pilot-house to renew the vacuum.
This set the professor's brain to work, and by nightfall he succeeded--
with the aid of a second barometer having a small piece of highly
magnetised steel floating on the top of the mercurial column, and a
couple of magnetised steel bars--in constructing a somewhat rude but
thoroughly efficient apparatus for automatically maintaining the ship at
any desired height, unaffected by the movements, be they few or many, of
those on board.

By the time that this apparatus had been fixed, and subjected to the
test of an hour's conscientious walking fore and aft the deck by the
entire party, the dinner-hour had arrived, and they retired below with
such appetites as only a day's exposure to the tonic effects of a sea-
breeze--minus all uncomfortable motion--could produce.  The fullest
justice was consequently done to the meal, after which they made their
way once more to the deck, and there, under a brilliant star-lit sky,
gave themselves up to the soothing influence of _the weed_ and the
renewed enjoyment of their novel position.  Midnight found them quite
ready for their state-rooms, and at that hour they accordingly retired;
the professor first of all, as a matter of precaution, increasing the
ship's altitude to four thousand feet above the sea-level, and then
paying a visit of inspection to the engine-room.  Matters were found to
be all right there; the engines were working smoothly and noiselessly,
the bearings were quite cool, and the automatic feed was doing its work
to perfection.  The ship, then, being at such a height as to be clear of
all danger, and steering herself in the required direction, with all the
machinery in perfect working order, the weather also being fine and
wearing a settled aspect, von Schalckenberg told himself that there was
not the slightest necessity for the maintenance of a look-out, and he
therefore also retired.  A quarter of an hour later the whole of the
crew were sunk in profound repose, and the _Flying Fish_, left to
herself, was leisurely wending her way northward at a height of nearly a
mile above the earth's surface.

The first of the quartette to put in an appearance on deck next morning
was the professor, who was awakened just as day was breaking by the
faint sound of a steam whistle.  Springing hastily from his very
comfortable couch, he rushed up the companion way and into the open air,
without even pausing to don his nether garments.  Springing to the guard
rail he looked around and below him, and the half-formed fear that
something had gone amiss, and that the ship was in danger, was at once
dissipated.  He saw that the _Flying Fish_ was moving rapidly along with
the land beneath her, the breeze having freshened during the night,
whilst still blowing from the same quarter, causing them to reach the
Irish coast sooner than had been anticipated.  The mercury stood at the
same height in the tube as it had done when they retired to rest on the
preceding night; the ship had consequently maintained her approximate
height above the sea-level, the only variation being that due to the
greater or lesser density of the atmosphere; which was eminently
satisfactory, as it showed that the professor's hastily constructed
apparatus for maintaining an uniform level had been faithfully
performing its duty.

These facts ascertained, von Schalckenberg cast his glance over the
scene spread out beneath him, in order to ascertain, if possible, his
position.  The morning was beautifully clear, the atmosphere being
entirely destitute of clouds, and the only obstacle to uninterrupted
vision was a thick mist which overspread the earth outstretched below
him like an immense map.  This, to a certain extent, rendered prompt
identification of the locality difficult; but a lake of very irregular
triangular shape was immediately underneath the ship, and from S. round
to about W.S.W., at a distance of about eight miles, extended a range of
hills which, from their height, the professor easily identified as
Macgillicuddy's Reeks, the lake below being Killarney.  Other hills
towered up out of the mist all round the ship, and, at a distance of
some twenty miles straight ahead, appeared the Stack Mountains.  Towns,
villages, farm buildings, and solitary cabins were dotted about all over
the country, and beyond all, from S.S.E. round by S. and W. to N., could
be seen the blue sea, dotted here and there with the brown sails of the
fishing craft or the scarcely whiter canvas of the coasters.

Satisfied that all was right, the professor returned to the pilot-house,
and, closing the doors to exclude the intense cold of the higher
atmospheric region, perfected the vacuum in the air chambers, causing
the ship to immediately soar aloft to the enormous height of thirty-five
thousand feet; having done which he made his way below again and plunged
into his bath.

On meeting his companions at the breakfast-table, von Schalckenberg
informed them of the position and elevation of the ship, and they at
once expressed an ardent desire to go out on deck immediately after
breakfast to view the magnificent prospect spread out around and beneath
them.

"You will have to put on your diving suits then, gentlemen," remarked
the scientist, "for you would find it quite impossible to breathe in the
extremely rarefied atmosphere which now supports us; moreover, it is so
intensely cold that, unless exceedingly well protected, you would soon
freeze to death.  But I quite agree with you that the prospect,
embracing as it does a circle of--let me see," and he made a hasty
calculation on the back of an envelope--"yes, a circle of very nearly
four hundred and sixty miles in diameter, must be well worth looking
at."

Accordingly, on the completion of the meal, the quartette descended to
the diving-room, and there donned their armour, taking the additional
precaution of adding a flannel overall to their ordinary inner diving
dress.  Thus equipped, they made their way to the pilot-house, carefully
closing all doors behind them on the way, and sallied out on deck.

The spectacle which then met their gaze was novel beyond all power of
description, and can only be feebly suggested.  The sky overhead was of
an intense ultramarine hue, approaching in depth to indigo, gradually
changing, as the eye travelled downward from the zenith toward the
horizon, to a pallid colourless hue.  The stars--excepting those near
the horizon--were almost as distinctly visible as at midnight; whilst
the sun, shorn of his rays, hung in the sky like a great ball of molten
copper; the moon also, reduced to a thin silver thread-like crescent,
had followed the sun into the sky, and hung a few degrees only above the
eastern horizon.

So lost in wonder were the travellers at this most extraordinary sight
that it was several minutes before they could withdraw their gaze from
the heavens and allow it to travel earthward.  When at length they did
so a scarcely less enchanting spectacle greeted them.  They were
hovering just over the inner extremity of an arm of the sea, which the
colonel--who was well acquainted with the south-west of Ireland--at once
identified as Dingle Bay.  Westward of them stretched the broad
Atlantic, its foam-flecked waters tinted a lovely sea-green immediately
below them, which gradually changed to a delicate sapphire blue as it
stretched away toward the invisible horizon (the atmosphere not proving
sufficiently clear to allow of their seeing to the utmost possible
limits of distance), the colour growing gradually fainter and more faint
until it became lost in a soft silvery grey mist.  Northward lay the
Dingle peninsula, and beyond it again could be seen Tralee Bay, the
mouth of the Shannon, and Loop Head; then Galway Bay and the Isles of
Arran, and, further on, just discernible in the misty distance, the
indented shore and hills of Connemara.  From thence, all round to the
eastern point of the compass, could be seen, with more or less
distinctness, the whole of county Clare, with part of county Galway, the
Doon Mountains, and a considerable portion of Tipperary; the Galtee and
Knockmeledown Mountains, and, in the extreme distance, a faint misty
blue, which the colonel declared was the sea just about Dungarvan
harbour.  And from thence, round to the southward, the sea and the
southern coast-line became more and more distinctly visible as the eye
travelled round the compass, Cork Harbour being just discernible, whilst
Cape Clear Island, Bantry Bay, and the Kenmare river seemed little more
than a stone's-throw distant.  Altogether it was perhaps the most
magnificent prospect upon which the human eye had ever rested; it
certainly exceeded anything which the travellers had ever witnessed
before, and their expressions of admiration and delight were unbounded.

When at last they had become somewhat accustomed to even this unique
experience, and had found leisure to take note of themselves, as it
were, the baronet remarked to the professor:

"But how is this, professor?  The engines are working, yet we do not
appear to be making any headway.  So far as I can judge we seem to be
simply drifting bodily to the westward and more toward the open sea."

"It is so," answered the professor.  "We have risen above the range of
the variable winds, and are now feeling the influence of an adverse air
current, which, in this latitude, invariably blows _from_ the northward;
and if we were to maintain our present altitude, for which, however,
there is not the slightest necessity, we should have to struggle against
it for the next eight or nine hundred miles, in fact until we reach the
neighbourhood of the Arctic circle.  There, or thereabout, we should
again have a fair wind, of which we may possibly yet be glad to avail
ourselves.  In the meantime, however, we will increase our speed, if you
please--at all events, until we are clear of the land, when we can once
more descend into a favourable current.  And as, until then, our rate of
travelling will be such as to make it difficult, if not impossible, to
maintain our footing on the deck, I would suggest the advisability of a
retreat to the pilot-house."

This suggestion having been promptly carried out, the speed of the ship
was increased to its utmost limit, whereby the rate of progression over
the ground was raised from nothing to about one hundred and eight miles
per hour.  This rate of travelling--the adverse wind fortunately
remaining moderate--enabled them to reach Erris Head, the north-western
corner of county Mayo, in an hour and a half, or about eleven o'clock
A.M., at which hour they found themselves just running clear of the
land, with the bay and county of Donegal on their right hand, and the
broad expanse of the North Atlantic ahead.

At this point the professor turned to his companions and said:

"It now becomes necessary that we should come to a definite decision as
to the course to be steered.  All routes are of course equally open to
us; but there are two which especially commend themselves to our
preference.  One is the direct northerly route to the Pole, which will
take us to the eastward of Iceland, straight to the island of Jan Mayen,
and thence, between Greenland and Spitzbergen, into an icy sea which has
been but little explored.  And the other is the usual route taken by
nearly all the great Arctic explorers, namely, up Davis Strait, through
Baffin's Bay, and thence, by way of Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel,
into the open Polar Sea, if such should actually exist.  By the one
route we shall have an opportunity of surveying the eastern coast of
Greenland, and thus accurately determining much that is at present mere
matter of conjecture; and by the other we shall have an opportunity of
beholding with our own eyes many spots of interest associated with the
researches of former explorers.  Now, which is it to be?"

The colonel and Mildmay naturally glanced at Sir Reginald, as an
intimation that he, in his character of founder of the expedition, was
entitled to the first expression of opinion; and, thus appealed to, the
baronet, after a short pause for reflection, replied:

"Well, so far as I am concerned, if I have a preference at all, I think
I am inclined to favour the Baffin's Bay route.  I confess I should like
to go over the ground traversed so painfully by former explorers, and
see for myself the nature of the obstacles with which they have had to
grapple.  And I should also like to look with my bodily eyes upon the
spots where they sought refuge during the rigours of the Arctic winter,
and those other spots where, the forces of nature finally proving too
great for them, they were reluctantly compelled to abandon further
effort, and, confessing themselves beaten, turn their faces once more
southward.  But if either of you happens to have a preference for
another route, I beg that you will say so, uninfluenced by my remarks."

The colonel and Mildmay now looked at each other interrogatively; and at
length the latter said:

"My predilections are naturally in favour of the route proposed by Sir
Reginald, that being the one followed by so many of my distinguished
predecessors in the service.  But what says the professor?  Which route
does he, as a scientist, think would be the most interesting?"

"Exactly; that, it seems to me, is the point of view from which we ought
to regard the question," exclaimed the baronet and the colonel in a
breath.

"From a purely scientific point of view they would probably prove
equally interesting," answered the professor.  "But, taking the other
circumstances into consideration, I am inclined to record my vote in
favour of Sir Reginalds suggestion."

"Then let that decide it," remarked the colonel; "I am sure we shall
have no cause to regret the choice."

The Baffin's Bay route was accordingly agreed upon; and the ship's head
was forthwith laid in a west-north-westerly direction for Cape Farewell.

For the next hour the ship's altitude above the sea-level was maintained
unaltered; but at noon, the ocean proving clear of ships as far as the
eye could reach, a descent was made to within one thousand feet of the
sea, at which height a favourable breeze and a clear atmosphere was
again met with.  On returning to the pilothouse after luncheon, or about
half-past three o'clock in the afternoon, three icebergs were
discovered, two ahead and one astern; but they were very small, and it
was therefore deemed hardly worth while to pause and examine them.  At
the same time a large steamer was observed, steering east, on the
extreme verge of the southern horizon; and by the aid of their very
powerful telescopes the travellers were able to identify her as one of
the Atlantic liners.  Half an hour later a sail was discovered on the
starboard bow; and, from the fact that she was heading to the northward
under easy canvas, they rightly concluded that she was a whaler.  They
passed this vessel within a distance of a dozen miles, and at this point
were able to so minutely examine her with their telescopes that they
could distinctly make out the figure of a man perched aloft in the
"crow's nest" on the look-out, as well as the figures of her crew moving
about the deck; but, although within such comparatively close proximity
to her, they were quite unable to detect any sign of their being
observed, which the professor attributed to the almost total absence of
colour about the hull; indeed, he gave it as his opinion that, unless
the rays of the sun happened to be reflected from the polished surface
of the aethereum directly toward an observer, the _Flying Fish_ might
easily pass within half a dozen miles unnoticed.

Before this whaler had been left out of sight astern other icebergs had
risen into view above the western horizon, and within half an hour they
found themselves flying above a sea thickly dotted with ice in every
direction, showing that they were rapidly nearing the entrance to Davis
Straits.  At six o'clock the sound of the gong summoned them below to
dinner; and just as they were on the point of leaving the pilot-house,
Mildmay, who, with the instinct of the seaman, had paused to take a last
look round, sighted a faint blue cloud-like appearance on the horizon,
about a point on the starboard bow, and raised a joyful shout of:

"Land, ho!"

The professor glanced at the clock, and, muttering to himself, "Yes, it
is about the right time," took his telescope and carefully examined the
distant cloud-like appearance.

"You are right, Mildmay," he exclaimed, as he closed the instrument,
"that is the land; it is Cape Farewell, the most southerly point of that
great _terra incognita_, Greenland.  With your permission, Sir Reginald,
I will reduce the speed of the ship to about twenty miles per hour, and
slightly alter her course; and, from the look of the weather, I think I
may promise that, when we go on deck to smoke our cigars after dinner,
you will see a sight well worth looking at."



CHAPTER EIGHT.

A SUPERB SPECTACLE.

Upon one pretext or another the professor purposely delayed the rising
of the party from the table until nine o'clock; and when they at length
reached the deck they found the somewhat rash promise made by von
Schalckenberg abundantly fulfilled.  A scene of surpassing loveliness
met their delighted gaze, and, to enjoy it more fully and completely, it
was promptly decided to descend to the ocean's surface.  The sea on all
sides was thickly covered with detached masses of floating ice, from the
diminutive fragment of drift-ice, measuring not more than two or three
square yards in area, to gigantic bergs, measuring, in one or two
instances, from a half to three quarters of a mile long, and towering
from two to three hundred feet above the surface of the water.  The sun
was nearing the horizon, and, with his golden beams falling full upon
them, these huge masses of ice glittered against the rosy grey of the
horizon like burnished metal or solid flame.  Two of these bergs in
particular were the objects of the travellers' especial wonder and
admiration.  One, at a distance of some six miles to the eastward,
resembled an island of crystal capped with an assemblage of marble
ruins.  Its perpendicular sides were rent here and there with deep
fissures, and in the centre there yawned an immense cavern, the interior
of which displayed every conceivable shade of the most lovely green,
from the transparent tint of the emerald to the opaque colour of the
malachite, a projecting bluff near at hand casting a strangely-
contrasting shadow of the deepest, purest ultramarine.  The ruined
pinnacles on the summit of the berg gleamed with every tint of the
rainbow, from palest yellow, through orange and crimson, to a blue
varying from the most delicate cobalt to a deep violet, almost
undistinguishable from black.  And, to complete the fairy-like beauty of
the picture, the body of the berg, a pure marble-like white in the
centre, gradually assumed a translucent appearance toward the edges, in
which the rays of the sun gleamed and sparkled so brilliantly that the
mass resembled nothing so much as a gigantic opal.

The other large berg, which in the first instance was only remarkable
for its enormous size, lay on the western horizon at a distance of some
eleven miles, and, when the travellers first directed their gaze upon
it, presented the appearance of a vast mass of a uniform very pale tint
of opaque blue rising above the rosy waters.  But as they looked upon it
the setting sun drew round toward its rear, and then the pale blue
opaque tint gradually quickened into translucency and quivered here and
there with sudden golden and roseate gleams of indescribable beauty.  As
the sun neared the berg these gleams and flashes deepened in tint and
became mingled in the most bewildering and delightful manner with rays
of rich sea-green, warm violet, and delicate purple.  Finally the sun,
just skimming the edge of the horizon, passed behind the berg, when it
at once flamed out into a dazzling blinding blaze, as though the berg
had taken fire.  For a space of perhaps half a minute this dazzling
spectacle continued with scarcely diminished brilliancy; then the blaze
deepened from gold to crimson, momentarily subsiding in intensity and
increasing in depth of colour until it stood out against the horizon an
immense mass of blood-red hue.  The red deepened into purple, the purple
into violet, and at last, probably when the sun had entirely sunk
beneath the horizon, the violet faded gradually to a pale cold lifeless
grey.

"Superb!"

"Magnificent!"

"Delightful!"

"Beautiful as a dream!"

Such were the exclamations which burst from the lips of the travellers
as they turned away with a sigh at the transitory nature of the beauties
they had just been witnessing, when lo! the scene to the eastward had
donned new glories.  The sun had vanished below the horizon, and the
lower portions of the bergs were therefore in cold blue shadow; but as
the glance travelled upwards the blue became merged by imperceptible
degrees into a delicate amethystine tint, which, growing gradually
warmer and more ruddy, passed by a thousand gradations through the
richest rose and orange tints to the purest golden-yellow, out of which
the projecting points and pinnacles of ice flashed and sparkled like
living flame.  This fairy-like spectacle lasted for a short time only,
however; the golden flashes vanished one by one; the yellow became
orange, the orange deepened into crimson, and the crimson in its turn
slowly merged into a cold cobalt blue as the light died out of the
western sky; and finally the stars came out one by one until the entire
firmament was thickly studded with them.  It was "nightfall on the sea."

Enthralled by the surpassing witchery of the scene, some time elapsed
before either of the travellers cared to break the silence.  At length,
however, the baronet turned to the professor and said:

"I owe you a debt of never-dying gratitude, professor, for having been
the means of introducing me to a scene of such indescribable beauty as
that which we have just witnessed; I have looked upon many a fair scene
during the course of my wanderings, but never upon anything to equal
this.  We must have been exceptionally fortunate to-night, have we not?
for surely the Polar world can have no spectacle more enchanting than
the one which we have just witnessed?"

"We _have_ been fortunate; there is no doubt about that," was the reply.
"But you have not yet seen the midnight sun nor the aurora borealis,
both of which sights far exceed in beauty what we have looked upon to-
night.  But it grows chilly and an insidious fog is gathering round us;
we must take measures for passing the night in safety, for, were we by
chance to be caught between two icebergs of even ordinary size, not even
the enormous strength of the _Flying Fish_ would save her from
destruction."

"And what do you propose to do, then, professor, in order to ensure our
safety?"

"There are two courses open to us.  One is to sink to the bottom of the
sea, which is here deep enough to secure us from all danger of being
struck by floating bergs.  And the other is to ascend into the calm
belt, where the night can be passed in a state of absolute safety."

"Very well, then; let us ascend into the `calm belt,' by all means,"
said the baronet.  "And, by the way, I should feel extremely obliged if
you would kindly explain to us what the `calm belt' is; I for one never
heard of it before."

"I will do so with pleasure," replied the professor.  "You must know,
then, in the first place, that there are certain atmospheric currents as
regular and precise in their action as those of the ocean, both being
created by the same cause--namely, the tendency of a warm fluid to rise
and of a colder one to flow into the vacated space.  Thus the air on the
equator, being heated by the vertical rays of the sun, rises, creating a
partial vacuum which the cold air from the poles rushes equator-ward to
fill, the warm air moving toward the poles to restore the balance.  Thus
at a few degrees north of the equator the upper stratum of air will
always be found to be travelling northward.  And it continues so to do
until it reaches the vicinity of the thirtieth parallel of latitude,
when, having lost most of its heat by constant exposure to open space,
it becomes cold enough to descend, taking the place of the polar
current, which meanwhile has been warmed by passing over the temperate
zone.  The equatorial current, though it has descended to the surface of
the earth, still makes its gradual way northward, as well as local
circumstances will permit, in order to replace the southward-flying
polar current; and by the time that it reaches the Arctic circle, it has
again, by contact with the earth, become the warmer of the two currents,
when it once more rises into the upper regions of the atmosphere, to
descend no more until it reaches the vicinity of the pole, when it
sinks, and at the same time turns southward as the polar current.  And
the same thing happens in the southern hemisphere.  Thus in each
hemisphere we have two great atmospheric currents--one flowing from the
pole to the equator, and the other flowing from the equator to the pole.
The lower current, or that which sweeps along the surface of the earth,
meets with so many disturbing local influences that it is frequently
deflected greatly from its proper course, sometimes so much so that its
course becomes completely reversed for a time; but in the upper regions
of the atmosphere these disturbing influences are very little if at all
felt.  Now, if I have succeeded in making this plain to you, you will
readily understand that where the top of the lower current and the
bottom of the upper current touch each other there will be so much
friction that a neutral or `calm belt' will occur in which the air will
be motionless.  And it is in this calm belt--which occurs between the
altitudes of three thousand and twelve thousand feet above the earth's
surface--that I propose we should take refuge to-night."

The professor's small audience duly expressed their thanks for the
extremely interesting lecture to which they had just been treated, and
then the party retreated to the pilot-house; the door was closed to
exclude the cold air of the upper regions which they were about to
visit; and an ascent was made to an altitude of eight thousand feet,
where the night was passed in an atmosphere so completely motionless
that, on their descent next morning, Lieutenant Mildmay's observations
showed them to be in the exact spot which they had occupied on the
previous evening.

It was decided over the breakfast-table that morning, that the journey
northward should be prosecuted, as far as possible, upon the surface of
the sea; and the _Flying Fish_ was accordingly put in motion on the
required course immediately upon her descent.  Their rate of progress
was particularly slow, not exceeding, on the average, a speed of six
miles per hour, as drift ice was remarkably abundant, mostly in small
detached blocks, though they occasionally encountered a floe of several
acres in extent; and, far away to the northward, quite a large
assemblage of bergs were seen.  This slow rate of progress would have
been wearisome to a veteran Arctic navigator in possession of such means
for the accomplishment of a quick passage as those enjoyed by the
inmates of the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house; but to them everything was
novel and interesting, and, almost before they knew it, they found
themselves in the immediate vicinity of the bergs.  These varied greatly
in size, some of them being no larger than a dwelling-house of moderate
dimensions, whilst others fully equalled, if, indeed, they did not
exceed, the proportions of the monsters seen on the previous evening.
They were grouped so closely together that a passage between them seemed
to be not wholly unattended with danger; and the party were in the act
of discussing the question which channel it would be most prudent to
take, their eyes being meanwhile fixed on the huge towering cliffs of
ice before them, when a gigantic overhanging mass was seen to detach
itself from its parent berg and plunge, a distance of some two hundred
and fifty feet, with a terrific splash into the water and disappear.
The deep thunderous roar of its plunge smote the ears of the watchers
next moment, and they looked on with breathless interest to see what
would follow.  The mass, from its enormous size, would weigh, they
considered, fully five thousand tons; and they were not surprised to see
that the loss of so much weight had seriously disturbed the balance of
the berg, which at once began to rock ponderously to and fro, creating a
terrific commotion in the water when conjoined with that caused by the
plunge into the sea and the reappearance a second or two later of the
detached mass.  The sea was seen to heap itself up in a long well-
defined ridge, similar--though, of course, on a tremendously magnified
scale--to that caused by the plunge of a stone into the water.  This
ridge spread out in a circular form all round the spot where the mass
had fallen, and at once began to travel outward in the form of an
immense breaker some six or seven feet in height.  Onward it rolled, its
smooth glassy front capped with a foaming crest presenting a singular
and somewhat alarming spectacle.  The fears of the beholders, however,
if they had any, were groundless, for, though the threatening wave swept
forward with a velocity of some twelve knots per hour, it swept
harmlessly enough over and along the cylindrical sides of the _Flying
Fish_, hissing and roaring most ominously, but failing to throw so much
as a single drop of spray on her deck.  This wave was quickly followed
by several others, each of which, however, was less formidable than the
preceding one.  Meanwhile, the drama, it appeared, had only begun.  The
oscillation of the parent berg, though it was probably quite unaffected
by the portion of the circular wave which dashed furiously against its
sides, became momentarily more and more violent, accompanied by a
rapidly increasing agitation of the sea in its neighbourhood, an
agitation so great that the surface of the ocean soon assumed the
appearance of a boiling cauldron, the foaming surges leaping wildly
hither and thither with a continuous roar like that of the surf beating
on a rocky shore, and soon assuming such dimensions that they even broke
over the deck of the _Flying Fish_, and dashed themselves into a cloud
of spray against the strong walls of the pilot-house.  Other fragments
now began to detach themselves with dull heavy roaring crashes from the
rocking berg; and, as though the action were contagious--or more
probably, in consequence of the jarring vibration of the air from such a
strong volume of sound--one after the other, the remaining bergs began
to go to pieces.  Then, indeed, the sight and the accompanying sounds
became truly awe-inspiring.  The air resounded with the continuous roar
of the dismembering bergs; the eye grew dizzy and bewildered as it
watched their swaying forms; and the surface of the ocean was
momentarily stirred into a wilder frenzy as the surges swept madly
hither and thither, and, meeting in mid-career, shattered each other
into a wild tempest of leaping foam, in the midst of which huge masses
of ice were seen every now and then to be tossed high into the air as
though they had been fragments of cork.  So mad was the commotion, and
so furiously were even the larger masses of ice dashed to and fro, that
it was deemed prudent to remove the _Flying Fish_ out of harm's way; and
she was accordingly raised a few fathoms above the surface of the raging
commotion which leaped and roared around her.  Scarcely had this been
accomplished--the whole of the drama occupying not one-tenth part of the
time which it takes to describe it--when the largest of the bergs was
seen to roll completely over, raising in the act so awful a surge that
it visibly affected even the immense masses of the other bergs, which,
in their turn, rolled slowly over one after the other, to the
accompaniment of one long loud echoing roar of rending ice as their
dismemberment thus became accelerated.  The resulting ocean disturbance
was, as may easily be imagined, appallingly grand and utterly
indescribable; and it no doubt contributed in no inconsiderable degree
to the total destruction of the bergs, which, once started, continued to
roll over and over, every lurch causing a further dismemberment until
the fragments became so small as to be incapable of further division.
Then ensued comparative silence, the only sounds being those of the
hoarse roar of the angry surges and the grinding crash of ice-blocks
dashed violently together.  Gradually these too subsided; and, in half
an hour from the commencement of the spectacle, the ice-strewn waters
were again rippling crisply under the influence of a moderate breeze,
and no sign remained to tell a new arrival upon the scene--had there
been one--what an awful tempest of destruction had raged there so short
a time before.

Pushing northward, the travellers sighted the coast of Greenland about
noon; the land made being a lofty snow-covered mountain, the conical
summit of which gleamed like silver in the brilliant sunshine.  As they
neared the coast the water became more open; and at length they emerged
into a broad channel completely free of ice, up which the _Flying Fish_
was urged at a trifle less than half-speed, or at the rate of about
sixty miles per hour.  At eight o'clock that night they crossed,
according to their "dead reckoning," the Arctic circle; and midnight
found them abreast of Disko Island, gazing with delighted eyes upon the
glorious spectacle of the midnight sun, the lower edge of his ruddy disc
just skimming the northern horizon.

At this point the channel between the Greenland coast and the pack-ice
narrowed very considerably; and their rate of progress northward next
day was reduced to a speed of between two and three miles per hour; the
engines needing to be just started, and then stopped again for a few
minutes in order to keep the speed down to this very low limit.  But
they were all as yet so new to Arctic scenery--everything was so
entirely novel to them--that even this snail's pace failed to prove
wearisome, especially as the weather continued gloriously fine.

Strange to say, up to this time they had not set eyes on a single Arctic
animal; but now, as they were busily threading their way through a
narrow channel in the ice, a white bear was seen about half a mile ahead
rapidly making his way across the pack toward them, whilst, a quarter of
a mile nearer, an animal which they at once took for a seal was seen
basking in the sun on the ice close to the water.  It speedily became
evident that the bear was after the seal, which, seemingly all
unconscious of the proximity of its enemy, raised its head now and then
as though in keen enjoyment of the warm glow.  The colonel hurried below
for rifles, as eager as a schoolboy, to obtain a shot at one or both of
the animals; and when he returned to the pilot-house with the weapons
both the seal and the bear were within range.  He raised one of the
rifles to his shoulder, and was covering the seal with it, when Sir
Reginald, who was watching the animals through a telescope, said:

"Do not fire, Lethbridge; there is something very curious about this;
_that seal is armed with a bow_."

The colonel stared incredulously at his companion, and then, dropping
the rifle, took and applied to his eye the telescope which Sir Reginald
handed to him.

"By George, you are right!" he exclaimed.  "What a very extraordinary
thing.  Why," he continued, "it is not a seal at all, it is a man, an
Esquimaux.  Now, look out and you will see some sport; the fellow is
fitting an arrow to his string, and how cautiously he is doing it, too.
It is my belief that he has got himself up as a seal and has been
simulating the actions of the animal in order to entice that deluded
bear within range.  There! he has shot his arrow and hit the mark, but
the bear does not seem to be very much the worse.  Aha! now you have to
run for it, my good fellow.  By Jove, the matter grows exciting!"

The Esquimaux had indeed been compelled to "run for it," the only
apparent effect of the arrow being to irritate the bear.  The man ran
fairly well, although hampered with an immense amount of clothing, but
the bear proved the faster of the two.  He rapidly gained upon the man,
and seemed about to spring upon him when the party in the pilot-house
poured in a general fusillade from their rifles.  There was just a
perceptible click from the locks of the weapons, but neither fire nor
smoke appeared, neither was there any report.  At that moment the bear
rose upon his hind-legs and, reaching forward with his fore-paws, aimed
a terrific blow at the flying hunter.  The man, who had been intently
watching his enemy all the while, nimbly leaped aside, and, quick as
thought, plunged a light lance fairly under the creature's armpit and
deep into his body.  The bear uttered a single roar of pain and baffled
rage, staggered a moment, and fell upon the ice, dead.

"Bravo! very cleverly done, indeed," exclaimed the colonel,
apostrophising the distant Esquimaux; "that was a lucky stroke for you,
my man.  But, I say, professor, what in the world is the matter with
these wretched rifles?  Every one of them missed fire, and, so far as we
are concerned, that unfortunate Esquimaux might have been killed."

"He might--yes, that is quite true," answered the professor with
provoking composure; "but if he had been it would have been our fault,
not that of the rifles; it was we who missed, not they.  Every one of
them duly discharged its bullet, and we simply missed our mark.  But had
we--or rather had _I_--preserved my presence of mind, I could still have
saved the man, for each of these weapons is a magazine rifle, firing
twenty shots--a fact which I had forgotten for the moment, and which it
now seems I have never yet explained to you.  Fortunately, the poor man
has proved quite able to take care of himself; but the shameful way in
which we all missed the bear, and our failure to fire again, is a lesson
on the folly of using untried weapons in an emergency.  We must
practise, gentlemen; we must practise."

And, without troubling themselves further as to what became of the
Esquimaux and his game, the deeply mortified party set themselves
forthwith first to listen to the professor's explanation of the
peculiarities of the weapons, and next, to practise diligently with them
for a full hour; at the expiration of which, as the rifles were really a
splendid arm and simple enough to handle when their action had been
clearly explained, the quartette had fully regained their confidence in
themselves and each other, having done some most excellent shooting.

Meanwhile the channel hourly grew more narrow and intricate; and, to add
still further to the difficulties of the passage, the wind shifted round
and began to blow freshly from the northward, bringing with it a dense
and bitterly cold fog.  The travellers struggled gallantly against these
adverse circumstances as long as any progress northward was at all
possible, being desirous of realising, as fully as might be, for
themselves the difficulties experienced by explorers in these high
latitudes; but at length they found themselves so completely hemmed in
by vast floes and drifting masses of pack-ice that to prolong the
struggle would only be endangering the ship, and they were reluctantly
compelled to own themselves beaten and to rise into the air.

They rose to a height of five hundred feet above the sea-level, and, at
this elevation, found themselves entirely free of the fog.  So far this
was well, but the dense masses of heavy grey snow-laden cloud which
obscured the heavens above them, and the threatening aspect of the sky
to windward, told them that their holiday weather was, at all events for
the present, gone, and that they were about to experience the terrors of
a polar gale.  The temperature fell with astounding rapidity; and they
were compelled to beat a rapid retreat to their state-rooms, there to
don additional garments.  This done, they sallied out on deck, to find
that during the short period of their retirement a heavy snow-storm had
set in, the air being so full of the great white blinding flakes that,
standing abreast the pilot-house, it was impossible to see either end of
the ship.  Floating in the air as they were it was, of course,
impossible for them to estimate the strength of the gale, the only
apparent movement of the atmosphere being that due to their own passage
through it.  Though heading to the northward, with the engines making a
sufficient number of revolutions per minute to propel them through still
air at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it was quite on the cards that
the adverse wind might be travelling at a higher speed than this, in
which event they would actually be driving more or less rapidly astern,
notwithstanding their apparent forward motion.  It thus became necessary
to post a look-out at each end of the ship, in order to avoid all
possibility of collision with some towering iceberg, unless they chose
to rise high enough in the air to be clear of all danger; and this they
were reluctant to do, as they wished to experience, for at least once in
their lives, all the terrors of a polar gale.  The baronet accordingly
volunteered to look out forward and the colonel to do the same aft, and
they hastened at once to their respective stations, Mildmay and the
professor superintending meanwhile the engine levers and other
appliances controlling the motion of the ship.  It was well for them
that these precautions were so promptly taken, for the colonel had
scarcely reached his post when, through the thick whirling snow which
scurried past him, he descried a huge white ghostly mass looming vaguely
up in the semi-darkness directly astern, and before he well had time to
make up his mind that he actually saw something, the top of a gigantic
berg revealed itself close at hand, and his prompt warning cry was only
raised in barely sufficient time to prevent the _Flying Fish_ driving
stern foremost into it, when the loss of her propeller must inevitably
have resulted.  Mildmay, however, whose quick ear first caught the
sound, promptly sent the engines at full speed ahead, and the danger was
averted.

Meanwhile, though the snow whirled so thickly around them and the fog
was so dense beneath that they were unable to see anything, they were
not allowed to remain entirely in ignorance of what was happening in
their near proximity.  The howling of the bitter blast over the frozen
waste beneath resounded in their ears like the diapason of some huge
organ played by giant fingers, and mingled with these deeper tones there
rose up to them a constant grinding crunching sound with occasional
rifle-like reports, telling of the tremendous destruction going on among
the ice-floes beneath.

Suddenly the snow ceased, the fog was swept away upon the wings of the
gale, and the entire scene in all its terrific grandeur burst at once
upon their gaze.  They were hovering immediately over the spot where two
immense floes had come into collision, and for miles to the right and
left of them the contiguous margins were being ground to pieces by the
enormous pressure, and the splintered fragments heaped up one above
another in the wildest confusion, to a height of from fifty to eighty
feet above the surface of the floe.  The ice, which was about fifteen
feet thick, crumbled away like fragile glass, and it was only by
observing the manner in which masses weighing hundreds of tons were
wildly tossed hither and thither like corks that even an approximate
idea of the tremendous power at work could be obtained.

A mile ahead another grand sight presented itself.  The northern and
larger of the two floes, acted strongly upon by the gale, and opposed by
the smaller floe, was slowly but irresistibly swinging round, and in its
sweep it had come into contact with a very large berg, which, influenced
apparently by some undercurrent, was with equally irresistible force
actually making its way to windward in the teeth of the gale.  The
result was a scene of wild chaos and confusion and destruction compared
with which that upon which they had just looked was as nothing.  The
berg simply tore its way through the floe as a plough does through a
furrow, splitting up the thick ice before it, and tossing the huge
fragments hither and thither until its path through the field was marked
by a black band of open water churned into fleecy froth by the breath of
the tempest, and bordered on either side by an immense wall of ice-
blocks, each of which constituted a small berg in itself.

The cold had by this time so increased in intensity that the colonel and
the baronet were only too glad to abandon their posts, now that there
was no further necessity for maintaining them, and retreat to the
friendly shelter of the pilot-house, where they lost no time in closing
themselves in.



CHAPTER NINE.

AN EXCITING ADVENTURE AND A RESCUE.

It was at this moment that Mildmay caught a momentary glimpse of an
object far away on the northern horizon, which his practised eye at once
told him was a sail of some sort.  He instantly seized one of the
telescopes suspended in the pilot-house, and brought the instrument to
bear in her direction.  For nearly a minute he was unsuccessful in his
endeavour to find her; but at length she reappeared from behind an
intervening berg; and it appeared to him that she was in a situation of
considerable peril.  She was a barque, under close-reefed topsails,
reefed courses, fore topmast staysail, and mizzen; and she appeared to
be embayed in the bight of a huge floe, with a whole fleet of bergs in
dangerous proximity and apparently bearing down upon her.  Perhaps the
strangest peculiarity about her was that, notwithstanding her perilous
position, she was dressed with flags, from her mast-heads downward, as
though it were a gala day on board.

Mildmay's anxious attitude and expression of face, together with his
earnest devotion to his telescope, soon attracted the notice of the rest
of the party; and the baronet asked him what object it was that so
riveted his attention.

He withdrew his eyes for a moment from the instrument, and, pointing out
the small and scarcely distinguishable dark spot on the horizon, said:

"Do you see that object, gentlemen?  Well, that is a barque embayed in
the ice, and evidently making a supreme effort to free herself--an
effort which to me, and at this distance, appears quite hopeless.  It is
my opinion that, unless the wind changes, or something equally
unforeseen occurs, she will within the next half hour be smashed into
matchwood--unless, indeed, _we_ can help her."

"Help her?  Of course we can," said the professor; and without waiting
for further discussion, he laid his hand on the engine lever and sent
the machinery ahead at nearly half-speed.

The _Flying Fish_ darted forward like a swallow in full flight; and the
professor, leaving the baronet in charge of the engines and the
steering-gear, summoned Mildmay and the colonel to follow him.  The trio
hastened to the after part of the deck, and, raising a trap-door which
the professor indicated, withdrew therefrom a thin pliant wire hawser--
made, like almost everything else in the ship, of aethereum--which,
having secured one end of it to a ring-bolt in the after extremity of
the deck, they coiled down in readiness for use as a tow-line.

"There!" ejaculated the professor in a gratified tone of voice, "we will
give her the end of that rope; and it shall go hard with us, but we will
tow her into some place of at least temporary safety."

"That is all right," responded Mildmay; "but how are we going to get it
on board her?  Its weight is a mere nothing, it is true, but it is
rather too bulky to heave on board.  Have you nothing smaller that we
can bend on to the eye of the hawser and use as a heaving-line?"

"Certainly I have," replied the professor.  "I had not thought of that.
`Every man to his trade.'"  And, diving down the hatchway, he rummaged
about for a few minutes and finally reappeared with a small coil of very
thin light pliant wire line, which Mildmay, pronouncing it to be exactly
the thing, proceeded at once to attach to the eye of the hawser.

Meanwhile, the baronet had been anxiously watching the barque through
the telescope, and had seen so much to increase his anxiety for her
safety that, forgetful of the exposed situation of his companions, he
had gradually increased the pace of the _Flying Fish_ until he had
brought it up to full speed.  This, of course, created so tremendous a
draught that not only was it quite impossible for the party aft to make
headway against it and thus regain the pilot-house, but they actually
had to fling themselves flat on the deck to avoid being blown overboard;
and even thus it was only with the utmost difficulty that they were able
to save themselves.

And this, unfortunately, was not the worst of it.  The light hawser,
acted upon by so powerful a draught, was for an instant slightly lifted
off the deck, and that slight lift did the mischief.  The next moment
the coils went streaming away astern one after the other, and, almost
before those who witnessed the accident could tell what had happened,
the propeller had been fouled and the hawser snapped like a thread.

The powerful jerk thus occasioned caused the baronet to turn his head;
and he then saw in a moment what mischief he had done.  He, luckily, had
presence of mind enough to stop the engines at once; the _Flying Fish's_
course was stayed, and she immediately began to drive swiftly astern in
apparently a dead calm, but actually swept along upon the wings of the
gale.

The professor at once scrambled to his feet, and, followed by his
companions, hurried to the pilot-house, where, without wasting time in
useless words, he at once set himself to look out for a suitable spot
upon which to alight, it being absolutely necessary to clear the
propeller before again moving the engines, lest in doing so a complete
break-down should result.

A favourable spot was at length found--but not until they had drifted
completely out of sight of the apparently doomed barque--and the _Flying
Fish_ was carefully lowered to the surface of a large floe, her anchor
being first let go in order to "bring her up" and prevent her being
driven along by the wind over the smooth surface.  It was a task more
difficult of accomplishment than they had anticipated, the anchor for
some time refusing to bite, but it caught at last in a crevice, and
immediately on the vessel touching, the grip-anchors were extended and
the ship secured.

No sooner was the _Flying Fish_ fairly settled on the ice than Mildmay,
who knew exactly what ought to be done, descended to the lower recesses
of the ship, and, opening the trap-door in her bottom, made his way out
on the ice, dragging with him a ladder which was always kept in the
diving-room.  He soon reached the stern of the vessel, and, rearing the
ladder in a suitable position against the propeller, nimbly ran aloft
and began to throw off the convolutions of the entangled hawser.  Twenty
minutes sufficed, not only to complete the work, but also to assure him
that no damage had been done to the hull of the vessel; and, his three
companions having followed him and removed the hawser to the interior of
the vessel, he re-entered the hull, secured the trap-door after him, and
ascended to the deck.  He here found Sir Reginald and the colonel busily
engaged in adjusting a new hawser ready for use, and, with his
assistance, this task was completed in another five minutes, and the
ship was once more ready for service.

As the _Flying Fish_ was in the act of rising from off the ice, Sir
Reginald asked:

"Should we not make better speed by taking at once to the water,
professor?"

"Undoubtedly we should," was the answer.  "Such a course would also have
the additional advantage of enabling us to immerse the hull to the
proper depth as we go along, thus giving us that hold upon the water
necessary to cope successfully with the weight of a large ship like the
one of which we are going in search.  We _might_, whilst floating in the
air, be able to tow her out of danger, but I am a little doubtful on the
point; and, as this is a case in which it will not do to incur any risk
by trying experiments, we will take to the water as soon as we can
discover a suitable channel.  It appears to me that there is something
of the kind about six miles ahead and a little to our right."

There certainly was a channel through the ice at the point indicated by
the professor, but whether it was a true channel, or merely a _cul de
sac_, they were for the moment unable to decide.  On nearing it to
within a mile, however, they found it to be the latter; but about a
couple of miles beyond it another streak of water was seen extending,
unbroken, as far as the eye could reach.  For this they steered, and in
a very few minutes afterwards the _Flying Fish_ was once more afloat,
with her water-chambers full and her air-compressor working to the full
extent of its power.

The hawser being this time temporarily secured in such a manner as to
render a repetition of their late accident impossible, and the entire
party being, moreover, safely ensconced in the pilot-house, there was no
hesitation about again pressing the ship forward at full speed, the
channel, luckily, being straight enough to allow of this; and very soon
the group of icebergs in which the unfortunate barque was entangled once
more appeared in view.  Mildmay was at the helm, with the professor
standing by the engines; but Sir Reginald and the colonel no sooner saw
the bergs than they seized their telescopes and began at once to look
out for the barque.

At first they could see nothing of her, but presently she glided into
view from behind an intervening berg, and a single glance was sufficient
to assure them that another five minutes would decide her fate.  She had
gradually set down into the triangular extremity of the bight in which
she was embayed, so that every tack she made became shorter than the one
preceding it, and very soon the water space would become so
circumscribed as to leave no room for her to manoeuvre.  But this was
not the worst feature of the case.  As desperate diseases are sometimes
combated with desperate remedies, so in her desperate condition the
hazardous and almost hopeless expedient of berthing her alongside one of
the edges of the floe might have been attempted.  But this last resource
was denied to the despairing seamen, from the fact that two enormous
bergs, the vanguard of the fleet, had already reached the edge of the
floe, on opposite sides of the bay, to windward of the entrapped barque,
and were rapidly rasping their way down toward the apex of the triangle
where the whaler was already shooting into stays for what must evidently
be her last tack.  This would be so short that she could scarcely fail
to miss stays on her next attempt, when she would drift helplessly down
into the corner of the bight, and be ground out of existence by the berg
which first happened to reach that point.

It was at this critical moment that a cry of dismay arose simultaneously
from the lips of the party in the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house.  A slight
turn in the channel had revealed to them the appalling fact that it,
also, terminated in a _cul de sac_, a neck of solid ice, some fifty
yards in width, dividing it from the open water in which the barque was
still battling for her life.

What was to be done?  There was no time to discuss the question; but a
happy inspiration flashed through the baronet's brain.

"We must _leap_ the barrier!" he exclaimed.

"Right!  I understand," was the professor's brief reply; and, turning
the compressed air into the water-chambers, he forced out the water and
succeeded in raising the sharp nose of the _Flying Fish_ just above the
level of the floe a single instant before she reached it.

It was a tremendous risk to run--one which would never have been thought
of in cold blood, as the ship was rushing forward at full speed, and
there was no knowing what might happen; but the sympathies of the party
were now so fully aroused by the awful peril of the barque--which, in
the midst of all her danger, was still gaily dressed in flags--that they
never paused to think of the possible consequences, but sent the ship at
the barrier as a huntsman sends his horse to a desperate leap.  For an
infinitesimal fraction of time the four adventurous travellers were
thrilled with a feeling of wild exultation as they held their breath and
braced themselves for the expected shock.  Then the smooth polished hull
of the _Flying Fish_ met the ice, and, rising like a hunter to the leap,
slid smoothly, and without the slightest jar, up on to the surface of
the floe, across the narrow barrier, and into the water beyond.

"Stop her!" shouted Mildmay, checking the exultant cheer which rose to
the lips of his companions.  "Sheer as close alongside the barque as you
can go, Sir Reginald, and give me a chance to get our heaving line on
board.  Then, as soon as I wave my hand, go ahead gently until you have
brought a strain upon the hawser, when you may increase the speed to
about twelve knots--not more, or you will tear the windlass out of the
barque.  Steer straight out between those two bergs, and remember that
_moments_ are now precious."

With these words the lieutenant hurried out on deck and made his way
aft, where he at once began to clear away the heaving line and make
ready for a cast.

The engines meanwhile had been stopped in obedience to Mildmay's
command, his companions intuitively recognising that he was the man to
cope with the present emergency, and the _Flying Fish_ answering the
helm, which the baronet, an experienced yachtsman, was deftly
manipulating, shot cleverly up along the weather side of the barque.

"Look out for our line, lads!" hailed Mildmay to the crew of the vessel,
who were gaping in open-mouthed astonishment at the extraordinary
apparition which had thus abruptly put in an appearance alongside them.

"Ay, ay, sir; heave!" answered one smart fellow, who, notwithstanding
his surprise, still seemed to have his wits about him.  Mildmay hove the
line with all a seaman's skill, and a couple of bights settled down
round the neck and shoulders of the expectant tar.

"Haul in, and throw the eye of the hawser over your windlass bitts,"
ordered Mildmay; "we will soon have you clear of your present pickle."

"Thank you, sir," hailed the skipper; "haul in smart there, for'ard, and
take a turn _anywhere_; those bergs are driving down upon us mighty
fast."

With a joyous "hurrah" at the timely arrival of such unexpected
assistance, the men roused the hawser on board, threw the eye over the
bitts, passed two or three turns of the slack round the barrel of the
windlass, and adjusted the rope in a "fair-lead" with lightning
rapidity.  Mildmay, who was intently watching their movements, waved his
hand as a signal to the baronet the instant he saw that the hawser was
properly fast on board the barque, and the _Flying Fish_ immediately
began to glide ahead.  The baronet was evidently bent on retrieving his
character and making up for his past carelessness, for he handled his
strangely-shaped vessel with most consummate skill, bringing the strain
upon the hawser very gradually, and, when he had done so, coaxing the
barque's head round until her nose and that of the _Flying Fish_ pointed
straight toward the rapidly narrowing passage between the bergs.  Then,
indeed, the thin but tough hawser straightened out taut as a bow-string
between the two vessels as the baronet sent his engines powerfully
ahead; the barque's windlass bitts creaked and groaned with the
tremendous strain to which they were suddenly subjected; a foaming surge
gathered and hissed under her bows, and as her harassed crew, active as
wild-cats, skipped about the decks busily letting go and clewing up,
away went the two craft toward the closing gap.

It was like steering into the jaws of death.  The two bergs were by this
time within a bare cable's-length of the _Flying Fish's_ conical stem;
and as they swept irresistibly onward, their pinnacled summits towering
five hundred feet into the air, their rugged sides rasping horribly
along the edges of the floe with an awful crushing, grinding sound, and
their contiguous sides approaching each other more and more nearly every
moment, there was not a man on either of those two vessels who did not
hold his breath and stand fascinated in awestricken suspense, gazing
upon those menacing walls of ice and waiting for the shock which should
be the herald of their destruction.

Rapidly--yet slower than a snail's pace, as it seemed to those anxious
men--the space narrowed between the bergs and the ships; the grinding
crash and crackle of the ice grew momentarily more loud and distracting;
the freezing wind from the bergs cut their faces like an invisible razor
as it swept down upon them in sudden powerful gusts, apparently intent
upon retarding their progress until the last hope of escape should be
cut off; the gigantic icy cliffs lowered more and more threateningly
down upon them; and at last, when the feeling of doubt and suspense was
at its highest, the _Flying Fish_ entered the gap.  The channel had by
this time become so narrow that for the _Flying Fish_ to pass through it
seemed utterly impossible; indeed, it looked as though there remained
scarcely room for the barque with her much narrower beam; and as the
towering crystal walls closed in upon them every man present felt that
the final moment had now come.  Everything depended upon Sir Reginald;
if at this critical instant his nerve failed him there was nothing but
quick destruction and a horrible death for every man there.  But the
baronet's nerve did _not_ fail him.  With a face pale and teeth clenched
with excitement, but with a steady pulse and an unquailing eye, he stood
with one hand on the tiller and the other on the engine lever, guiding
his ship exactly midway through the narrow gorge; and precisely at the
right moment, when the _Flying Fish's_ sides were actually grazing the
ice on either side, he increased the pressure of his hand upon the
lever, the engines revolved a shade more rapidly, and the flying ship
slid through the narrowest part of the pass uninjured, but escaping by
the merest hair's breadth.

But would the barque also get through?  She was fully two hundred feet
astern of the _Flying Fish_, and the bergs were revolving on their own
centres in such a manner that ere many seconds were past they must
inevitably come together with a force which would literally annihilate
whatever might happen to be between them.  And as for the barque--the
way in which her bows were burying themselves in the hissing wave that
foamed and surged about her cutwater, and the terrified looks of her
crew as they glanced, now aloft at the formidable bergs, and now at the
straining hawser--from which they stood warily aloof lest it should
part, and in so doing inflict upon some of them a deadly injury--told
the baronet that he must not increase by a single ounce the strain upon
the rope, lest something should give way on board the whaler and leave
her there helpless in the very grip of those awful floating mountains of
ice.

It was a race between the bergs and the barque; and Mildmay, standing
there by the after rail, told himself, as he breathlessly watched the
progress of events, that the bergs would win.  The contiguous sides of
these monsters were slightly concave in shape; and whilst the whaler,
still some dozen yards or so within the passage had a foot or two of
clear water on either side of her, the projecting extremities of the
bergs had neared each other to within a distance of twenty feet, or some
five feet less than the breadth of the imprisoned ship.

Suddenly a tremendous crash was heard, and the party on board the
_Flying Fish_ looked to see the unfortunate barque collapse and crumple
into a shapeless mass of splintered wood before their eyes.  But, to
their inexpressible astonishment, nothing of the sort occurred.  There
was a reverberating sound as of muffled thunder, which echoed and re-
echoed in the confined space between the two bergs; a series of
tremendous splashes just astern of the whaler; the bergs recoiled
violently from each other; the baronet, more by instinct than anything
else, threw the engine lever still further forward, and before anyone
had time even to draw a breath of relief, the apparently doomed vessel
was dragged, with a foaming surge heaped up round her bows as high as
the figurehead, out from the reopened portal and clear of all danger a
single instant before the two gigantic masses of ice again closed in
upon each other with a horrible grinding _crunch_ which must have been
audible for miles.

It was not until the barque had been dragged, almost bows under, some
fifty or sixty fathoms away from the still grinding and rasping bergs,
that her crew were able to realise the astounding fact of their safety,
but when they did so they sent up a wild cheer which was as distinct an
expression of gratitude to God for their deliverance as ever issued from
human lips.  Their escape, though it could easily be accounted for,
might indeed well be called miraculous, for at the moment when their
last hope was extinguished--apparently their last chance gone--two huge
overhanging projections on the summits of the bergs had come into
contact with such violence that both the projecting masses of ice had
become detached and had gone thundering down into the water, fortunately
at some few yards' distance astern of the whaler, and the shock of
collision had been so great as to compel the momentary recoil of the
bergs, with the fortunate result already described.

Directly it was seen that the barque had indeed escaped, the _Flying
Fish's_ engines were slowed down to their lowest speed, and the whaler,
relieved of the enormous tugging strain upon her, once more floated on
her normal water-lines.  The two craft were now in comparatively open
water, the channel being between two and three miles wide, and still
widening ahead of them, with a few small bergs in their vicinity, it is
true, but with no ice at hand likely to cause them immediate peril.  The
barque was towed to windward of all these, and then the baronet stopped
the _Flying Fish_ altogether, and hailed the skipper of the whaler to
know whither he was bound.  Upon this the worthy man lowered one of his
boats and pulled alongside his strange consort to return thanks in
person for his recent rescue.

He was a very fine specimen of a seaman, not very tall, but bluff and
hearty-looking in his manifold wraps surmounted by a dreadnought pilot
jacket, sealskin cap, and water boots reaching to his thighs; and it was
amusing to see his look of surprise as he came up the _Flying Fish's_
side-ladder and stepped in upon her roomy deck unencumbered by anything
but the pilot-house.  The four companions of course stepped out on deck
in a body to meet him, and after they had all heartily shaken hands with
him and deprecatingly received his thanks for the important service
rendered in the rescue of his ship from the ice, he was invited to
accompany them below to cement the newly-made acquaintance over a glass
of grog.  And if the worthy seaman was surprised at the exterior of the
strange craft he was now visiting, how much greater was his astonishment
when he entered her magnificent saloons, revelled in their grateful
warmth, and looked round bewildered upon the rich carpets, the handsome
furniture, the superb pictures and statuary, and the choice _bric a
brac_, all glowing under the brilliant but cunningly modified electric
light.  And if he was surprised at all these unwonted sights, his
astonishment may be imagined when he was informed that the four refined
and cultured men who welcomed him so hospitably, constituted, with the
exception of the cook and the steward, the entire crew of the immense
craft, and that the owner of all the magnificence he beheld had dared
the terrors of the polar regions solely by way of pastime.

"Well, gentlemen," he remarked, "it's an old saying that tastes differ,
and what you've just told me proves it.  I've been a whaler for nigh on
to twenty-five years, but it has been a case of necessity, not choice,
with me; and after the first two or three years of the life--when the
novelty had worn off a bit, as you may say--I've looked forward to only
one thing, and that is the scraping together of enough money to retire
and get quit of it all for ever.  I took to it first as a hand before
the mast, and have regularly passed through all the grades--boat-
steerer, third, second, and chief mate, master, and at last owner of my
own ship, always with the same object ahead.  And when, little more than
a year ago, I put the savings of a lifetime into the purchase of the old
_Walrus_ there, I thought that the dream of my life was soon to be
realised, and that one trip more to the nor'ard would bring me in a
sufficiency to last me the remainder of my days, and enable me to enjoy
'em in the company of my wife and my little daughter.  God bless the
child! if she's still alive she's five years old to-day."

"Ah!" interrupted Mildmay, "then that, I suppose, accounts for the flags
flying on board you, and the meaning of which we were so utterly unable
to guess?"

"That's it, sir," was the reply.  "I `dressed ship' at eight o'clock
this morning in honour of my little Florrie's birthday, and I hadn't the
heart to haul down the flags even when we found ourselves in such a
precious pickle amongst the ice yonder.  I thought that if so be it was
God's will that we was to go, we might as well go with the buntin' still
flying in Florrie's honour as not."

"And what success have you met with, captain?" asked Sir Reginald.

"Precious little, sir.  We've been out now more'n a twelvemonth, and
we've only killed three fish in all that time.  Got jammed up here in
the ice all last winter.  I stayed in hopes of doin' something in the
sealing line, and only got some three hundred skins after all.  It's
been a bad speculation for me.  An old friend of mine came this way the
year before last, and, the season being an open one and not much ice
about, he reached as far north as Baffin's Bay and through Jones' Sound,
fillin' his ship with oil and bone in a single season.  He was lucky
enough to hit upon a spot where the sea was fairly alive with whales,
and he filled the ship right up in that very spot.  The fish seemed
tame, as though they hadn't been interfered with for years; and bein' an
old friend, as I said before, he gave me the latitude and longitude of
the place as a great secret, and I've been trying to reach the spot ever
since we came north, but have been kept back by the ice and the contrary
winds.  If I could get there, even now, it would make the trip
profitable enough to serve my purpose; but I see no chance of it, and
the men are getting disheartened."

"Never mind, captain, cheer up; all may yet be well," exclaimed the
baronet.  "We can't drag your ship _over_ the ice, but if there is only
a passage for her we can drag her _through_ it, and for little Florrie's
sake we will.  If it is in our power to get you to the spot you wish to
reach, you shall go there.  Now, as the present open water affords an
opportunity too good to be lost, return to your ship, secure our hawser
in such a way that we may put a big strain upon it without damaging the
vessel, and send a trustworthy hand aloft into the crow's-nest to look
out for the best channels.  We will tow you to the northward as long as
a channel can be found through the ice, and at seven o'clock I hope you
will give us the pleasure of your company on board here to dinner, when
we will drink `many happy returns of the day' to Florrie in the best
champagne the _Flying Fish's_ cellar affords."

The captain of the whaler returned to his own ship in a state of such
mingled astonishment and elation that his people were at first inclined
to think he had suddenly gone demented.  However, the order which he
gave them to secure the towing hawser in such a manner as would enable
the ship to withstand a heavy strain was intelligible enough; it told
them that, with the assistance of their strange rescuers, a supreme
effort was now to be made to reach those prolific fishing-grounds which
had from the first been the goal of their voyage; and that, best of all,
that effort was to be unaccompanied by any of the usual harassing labour
of working the ship to windward through the ice, and they set to with a
will.  A sufficient length of the hawser was hauled on board to enable
them to take a couple of turns round the barrel of the windlass and two
more round the heel of the foremast, the eye of the hawser being further
secured by tackles to every ring-bolt in the ship capable of bearing a
good substantial strain; and then, the skipper himself going aloft to
the crow's-nest, the signal was given for the _Flying Fish_ to go ahead.



CHAPTER TEN.

THE "HUMBOLDT" GLACIER.

The two ships were at this time floating in a tolerably broad expanse of
open water; but at a distance of some seven miles ahead the pack-ice
stretched, apparently unbroken, across their track for miles.  The
skipper of the whaler, however, shouted down to them from his elevated
perch the intelligence that a somewhat intricate but continuous channel
extended through this ice in a northerly direction as far as the eye
could reach.  Toward this channel, then, away they went at a speed of
something like sixteen knots per hour, the barque with her string of
colours still fluttering bravely in defiance of the adverse gale, and
the _Flying Fish_ with the white ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron, of
which Sir Reginald was a member, streaming from her ensign staff in
honour of little Florrie.  It was a strange sight, even in that region
of fantastic phantasmagoria, to see the two ships, one of which,
moreover, wore such an unaccustomed shape, dashing rapidly along through
the black foam-flecked water, with ice in every conceivable form heaped
and piled around them, and their bright-hued flags fluttering against
the dark and dismal background of a stormy sky; and the skipper of the
whaler possesses to this day a spirited water-colour sketch of the
scene, executed on the spot by the colonel, which he exhibits with
becoming pride whenever he relates the story of his wonderful escape
from the threatening icebergs.

Half an hour later they entered the channel through the ice.  Narrow and
tortuous at first, it gradually widened out, and, after a journey of
some fourteen or fifteen miles, turned sharply off in a direction almost
due west.  About the same time the gale broke, the sun made his
appearance through the rifted clouds, and by seven o'clock that evening,
at which hour Florrie's father duly put in an appearance on board the
_Flying Fish_, the engines having been temporarily stopped to receive
him, they found themselves in open water, or rather in a straight
channel some twelve miles in width and entirely free from ice, with a
clear sky overhead, a light easterly wind blowing, and the evening sun
lighting up the snow-clad peaks of the extensive island called North
Devon.  An hour later, dinner having been postponed on account of their
near proximity to the land, the two vessels entered a commodious natural
harbour called Hyde Bay, and anchored there for the night, in order to
give the whaler's exhausted crew an opportunity to snatch a few hours of
much-needed rest.

The master of the _Walrus_, who answered, by the way, to the name of
Hudson, though only a bluff hearty seaman, and somewhat shy for the
first half-hour or so in such unaccustomed company as that of his four
well-bred easy-mannered entertainers, gradually thawed out under the
genial influence of the baronet's champagne, and proved himself a
tolerably well informed and by no means disagreeable companion.  He
possessed a fund of interesting anecdote and information with respect to
the peculiarities of the region his hosts were now visiting for the
first time, and imparted to them many valuable hints as to the best
means of protecting themselves from the ice; but, as they did not see
fit to inform him of the aerial capabilities of the _Flying Fish_, he
laughed to scorn their project of reaching the North Pole, which he
assured them most solemnly was an utter impossibility.  They duly drank
the unconscious Florrie's health, treated her father to some excellent
music, gave him a file of the latest newspapers they had brought with
them, and sent him back to his own ship at midnight a thoroughly happy
man.

On the following morning about half-past eight, whilst the party on
board the _Flying Fish_ were sitting down to breakfast, the sound of
oars was heard close alongside; and a minute later Captain Hudson,
ushered by George, made his appearance in the saloon.  He was in a great
hurry and almost breathlessly explained that he had come on board to
repeat his thanks and those of his crew for their rescue of the previous
day, and to say "Good-bye," as he was about to weigh and proceed to sea
in chase of a large school of whales which had just been seen spouting
at a distance of some twelve miles in the offing.  The baronet was good-
natured enough to offer to tow him to the scene of action; but this
service he gratefully declined, saying that there was a fine fair wind
blowing and that his anchor was already a-trip.  The party therefore
shook hands heartily with him, wishing him "Good luck," and he departed,
leaving Sir Reginald and his friends to finish their meal at their
leisure.

An hour later the _Flying Fish_ also weighed and stood out to sea after
the _Walrus_, now nearly hull down, to witness the sport.

The engines had scarcely begun to move when the whaler was seen to heave
to; and when the _Flying Fish_ ranged up alongside her, some ten minutes
afterwards, three whale-boats were in the water and pulling lustily
toward a school of some forty whales which were lazily sporting,
apparently quite unconscious of danger, about two miles away.

"Those whales do not appear in the least alarmed at the presence of the
boats," remarked Mildmay; "evidently they have not been chased for a
considerable period.  If we only had the means of killing a few, now,
what a splendid opportunity there would be to do that poor fellow Hudson
a good turn."

"Well thought of!" exclaimed the professor.  "Follow me, gentlemen; we
can do our friend a good turn, and, at the same time, test the powers of
our large-bore rifles with explosive shells for big game."

The party hurried below to the armoury, and each selected one of the
weapons indicated by the professor, providing himself at the same time
with a supply of cartridges from a large chest near at hand.

The rifles were truly formidable, being repeating weapons each capable
of firing ten shots without reloading.  The barrels were not very long,
measuring only three feet from breech to muzzle, but they were of one-
and-a-half-inch bore and fired a conical shell four and a half inches in
length.  Notwithstanding their somewhat ponderous appearance they were
very light, being constructed of aethereum throughout.

When the party returned to the deck they had the satisfaction of seeing
that, though each of the whale-boats had succeeded in fastening to a
fish, the remainder of the school manifested very little alarm, the
stricken whales having started to "run" in different directions and
quite away from their companions.

The _Flying Fish_ was moved as gently as possible into the very centre
of the herd, the huge monsters taking no apparent notice of her, and
perhaps mistaking her for one of themselves.  They were swimming lazily
about, rolling over on their sides until their pectoral fins appeared
above the surface, and occasionally throwing themselves entirely out of
the water.

The engines being stopped the four sportsmen took up their positions,
two on each side of the deck, and, having loaded their weapons, waited
for a favourable opportunity to use them.

The baronet was the first to fire.  He had selected for his victim a
huge bull, fully eighty feet in length, and this creature he patiently
watched, hoping for an opportunity to inflict a fatal wound.  It soon
came.  The animal rolled lazily over on its right side, exposing the
whole of its left fin, and before it could recover itself Sir Reginald
had levelled and discharged his piece.  There was a very faint puff of
thin fleecy vapour, but no report or sound of any kind save the by no
means loud click of the hammer, above which could be distinctly heard
the dull thud of the shell.  The whale shuddered visibly at the blow,
and made as though about to "sound" or dive; but before it had power to
do so the shell must have exploded, for the immense creature made a
sudden violent writhing motion, half leapt out of the water, and rolled
over on its side, dead.  The professor scored the next success, closely
followed by the colonel, Lieutenant Mildmay signalising his first essay
with the new arm by making a palpable miss, much to his disgust.  His
failure, however, taught him a valuable lesson, and he succeeded in
killing two whales before either of the others had been able to secure
another shot.  In ten minutes eight whales had been killed, and the
professor, who was very rigid in his objection to the wanton sacrifice
of life, then suggested that probably as many had been killed as the
whaler could successfully deal with at one time, especially as the boats
now had signals flying which showed that each had killed her fish.  The
_Flying Fish_ was accordingly ranged up close alongside the _Walrus_,
and the baronet hailed:

"_Walrus_ ahoy! how many fish can you `cut in' at one operation?"

"I wish I had the chance of trying my hand upon half a dozen," was the
reply, given, the baronet thought, in rather a sulky tone.

"Well," returned Sir Reginald, "there are eight which we have killed and
three taken by your boats, making eleven altogether.  Can you handle any
more? because, if so, we will kill them for you; but, if not, we think
it best not to disturb them further."

"Do you mean to say that you've killed those fish on my account, then?"
asked Hudson with great animation.

"To be sure we did.  You surely did not suppose that we wanted them for
ourselves, did you?"

The whaling skipper muttered a few unintelligible words to himself, and
then shouted back in unmistakably hearty tones:

"Thank'ee, gentlemen, thank'ee with all my heart.  That's another favour
I'm in your debt.  That being the case, I think, if it's all the same to
you, I'd rather that the rest of the school be left to go their ways in
peace.  I don't want them to be frightened; and eleven fish is as much
as we can well handle at one time."

"In that case, then," returned Sir Reginald, "we will wish you `Good-
bye,' and a prosperous voyage."

"Thank'ee, gentlemen; the same to you, and best thanks for all favours,"
replied Hudson.

And with mutual hand-wavings and dipping of colours the two craft
separated, the _Walrus_ bearing up to intercept her boats, and the
_Flying Fish_ heading northward at a speed of about twenty knots.

For about a couple of hours the adventurous voyagers were able to
maintain that speed; but toward noon they found themselves once more
surrounded by ice; and they had no choice but either to materially
reduce their speed and slowly thread their way through narrow and
tortuous channels, or once more take flight into the air.  They chose
the latter alternative; and for the next two hours the flying ship sped
northward through Smith's Sound, for the most part over an unbroken
field of pack-ice which, to any ordinary vessel, would have opposed an
utterly impassable barrier.  At two o'clock in the afternoon, however,
the Greenland shore suddenly trended to the north-eastward; and after
following it for a short time the ice once more began to be intersected
with water channels, short and narrow at first, but wider as they
proceeded, until at length they found themselves once more able to
descend in a water lane some four miles in width.

"And now," said the professor, as they were nearing a bold rocky
headland on their starboard bow, "we are about to be introduced to one
of _the_ sights _par excellence_ of the Arctic regions."

"What is it?" was the question which burst simultaneously from the lips
of his three companions.

"Wait and see," answered the professor, nodding mysteriously.

Sure enough, the moment that the _Flying Fish_ rounded the point a
magnificent spectacle burst upon the travellers' enraptured gaze.  It
was neither more nor less than an immense cliff of the clearest crystal
ice, towering some three hundred feet above the water's edge, and
extending so far northward along the coast that its northern extremity
lay far below the horizon.  It was the magnificent Humboldt Glacier.
The afternoon sun was shining full upon its rugged face, causing the
enormous mass to flash and gleam like a gigantic diamond.  As they
coasted slowly along, at a distance of about half a mile from its face,
the dazzling flashes of light were reproduced one after the other,
changing rapidly from one colour to another through every conceivable
tint of the rainbow, until the beholders' eyes fairly ached with the
contemplation of so much splendour, all of which was reflected with the
most charming variation in the mirror-like surface of the deep still
water below.  The wind had died away to a dead calm, as if to give the
bold explorers an opportunity of witnessing this unrivalled sight to the
best advantage; and every now and then the still air resounded with the
sharp rifle-like _crack_ which told that, though apparently so
motionless and solid, hidden forces were at work within the heart of the
glacier, slowly but surely tending to its ultimate dismemberment.

Suddenly a crashing report, so loud that it resembled the simultaneous
discharge of a whole army of rifles, smote upon their ears; and then, as
they stood in a trance of breathless expectation, wondering what was
about to happen, an immense section of the icy cliff was seen to be in
motion.  Slowly at first, but with ever-increasing rapidity, it slid
downward into the water, with a continuous roaring reverberating crash,
to which even the awful pealing of thunder was as nothing, until in a
wild turmoil of madly leaping and foaming surges it disappeared entirely
below the water.  The sea rushed irresistibly after it from all sides,
pouring like a foaming cataract into the hollow watery basin it had
left, and dragging the _Flying Fish_ helplessly toward the yawning
vortex.  Then the inward rush suddenly ceased; a gleaming white crest of
ice reappeared above the foam, and with a mighty upward rush and a
resounding roar the gigantic submerged mass once more upreared itself
above the again maddened waters, swaying heavily to and fro, whilst a
thousand gleaming torrents poured down its sparkling sides.  And, as a
fitting _finale_ to the thrilling spectacle, a huge wall of water
suddenly heaped itself up about the rocking mass and began to rush
rapidly outward in an ever-widening circle, its towering crest
surmounted by a roaring curling fringe of snow-white foam.  Increasing
in height and in speed as it advanced, it rapidly attained an altitude
of fully sixty feet, bearing down upon the _Flying Fish_ so menacingly
that, for a few seconds, the party in the pilot-house stood paralysed
with consternation, expecting nothing less than that they would be
helplessly overwhelmed.  The first to recover his presence of mind was
Mildmay, who, springing to the rods which controlled the air-valves,
pressed them powerfully down, throwing them all wide open and at once
ejecting from the hull both the water and the compressed air, and
causing the ship to rise until she floated lightly as an air-bubble on
the water.  He then injected a dense body of vapour into the air and
water chambers, completing the vacuum; and the ship rose into the air
just in time to avoid the gigantic surge, which went hissing and roaring
close beneath them with a power and fury which fully revealed to them
the extent of the disturbance from which they had so narrowly escaped.
Other surges followed in quick rotation; but each was less formidable
than its predecessor, and in another ten minutes the surface had once
more subsided into a state of comparative calm.

As the _Flying Fish_ once more settled down upon the water and the air-
pump was set going, the professor turned to his companions and remarked:

"We have especial reason to congratulate ourselves and each other,
gentlemen, for we have to-day not only looked upon the magnificent
Humboldt Glacier under most highly favourable conditions, but we have
been also permitted to witness that even rarer sight, _the birth of an
iceberg_!"

They had indeed witnessed the birth of an iceberg, and that too of quite
unusual size; for, as soon as they dared, they approached the newly
fallen mass of ice closely enough to make a tolerably accurate
measurement of it; and they found that it was of nearly square shape,
measuring fully three-quarters of a mile along each of its four sides,
and towering to an average height of about three hundred and fifteen
feet above the surface of the water.  The visible portion of the berg
constituted, however, only a small portion of its entire bulk, since
fresh-water ice floating in salt water shows above the surface only one-
eighth of its entire depth.  This enormous berg, therefore, must have
measured in its entirety about four thousand feet square by about two
thousand five hundred feet deep!  And its weight must have approximated
closely upon two thousand millions of tons!  Bergs of equal, or even
greater dimensions, have occasionally been encountered in the Arctic
seas; but how few of earth's inhabitants have ever been privileged to
witness the disruption of so enormous a mass from its parent glacier!

After witnessing so thrilling a spectacle as this--probably the grandest
and most impressive which the Arctic regions can exhibit--it is perhaps
not to be wondered at that even the beauties of the glacier itself
appeared somewhat tame and uninteresting to the voyagers.  But their
interest was once more awakened when, having at length coasted along the
face of the glacier for a distance of not less than _sixty miles_, they
reached its northern extremity and found the succeeding Greenland coast
to be magnificently picturesque, the greenstone and sandstone cliffs in
some cases towering abruptly from the water's edge to a height of a
thousand feet or more, not in a smooth unbroken face, or even with the
usual everyday rugged aspect of a rocky precipice, but presenting to the
enraptured eye an ever-varying perspective of ruined buttresses,
pinnacles, arches, and even more fantastic architectural semblances.  In
one spot which caused them to pause in sheer admiration, the crumbling
_debris_ at the foot of the cliff had shaped itself into the likeness of
a huge causeway such as might have been constructed by one of the giants
of fabulous times, leading into a deep wild rocky gorge rich in soft
purple shadows, at the further edge of which rose a gigantic rock hewn
by the storms of ten thousand winters into the exact similitude of a
castle flanked by three lofty detached towers all bathed in the dreamy
roseate haze of the evening sunshine.  And, somewhat further on, they
came to a single greenstone cliff the skyline of which was boldly
chiselled into the likeness of the ruined ramparts of an extensive city,
whilst at its northern extremity, at the edge of a deep ravine, a
solitary column nearly five hundred feet high, and standing upon a base
or pedestal nearly three hundred feet high, shot straight and smooth up
into the deep blue of the northern sky.

Tearing themselves unwillingly away from this region of weird
enchantment, the voyagers pushed onward along Kennedy and Robeson
Channels, sometimes winding their way through intricate water lanes in
the ice, and sometimes skimming lightly a few yards above the surface of
the solid pack, until they reached the latitude of 82 degrees 30 minutes
North, when the land abruptly trended away to their right and left, and
they found themselves hovering over an immense field of pack-ice which
extended in an unbroken mass as far northward as the eye could reach.

Up to the present, from the time of their passing Disko Island, the
voyagers had seen plenty of seals and walruses, with an occasional white
bear, a few Arctic foxes, a herd or two of reindeer, and even a few
specimens of the elk and musk-ox, to say nothing of birds, such as snow-
geese, eider and long-tailed ducks, sea-eagles, divers, auks, and gulls.
Moreover, they had been favoured with, on the whole, exceptionally fine
weather--due as much as anything, perhaps, to the fact that they had
been fortunate enough to enter the Arctic circle during the prevalence
of a "spell" of fine weather, and that they had accomplished in a very
few days a distance which it would occupy an ordinary craft months of
weary toil to cover.  But, on passing the edge of this gigantic ice
barrier, they left all life behind them; even the very gulls--which had
followed them in clouds whenever the speed of the _Flying Fish_ was low
enough to permit of such a proceeding--after wheeling agitatedly about
the ship for a few minutes with discordant screams, as of warning to the
travellers not to venture into so vast and gloomy a solitude, forsook
them and retraced their way to the southward.  The weather, too,
changed, the sky becoming overcast with a pall of dull grey snow--laden
cloud accompanied by a dismal murky atmosphere and a temperature of ten
degrees below zero.  The wind sighed and moaned over the icy waste; but,
excepting for this dreary and depressing sound, there was absolute
silence, the silence of a dead world.

The ice bore at first the same appearance as all the other ice which
they had hitherto encountered, but by the time that they had advanced a
distance of thirty miles into the frozen desert they became conscious of
a change.  The hummocks were not so lofty as heretofore, the hollows
between them having the appearance of being to a considerable extent
filled up with hard frozen snow; the ice itself, too, instead of being a
pure white, was tinged with yellow of the hue of very old ivory; the
sharp angles, also, were all worn away as if by long-continued abrasion;
the ice, in fact, bore unmistakable evidence of extreme age.

At the professor's suggestion a pause was made and a descent effected,
in order that he might carefully investigate the nature of the ice; and,
warmly clad in furs, the entire party left the ship for this purpose.

"It is as I feared," said von Schalckenberg, after they had toiled
painfully over the surface for some time; "we have reached the region of
paleocrystic or ancient ice; and my cherished theory of an open sea
about the North Pole vanishes into thin air.  Look at this ice here,
where a portion of the original hummock still remains bare--it is yellow
and rotten, not with the rottenness which precedes a thaw, but with
extreme age.  See, it crumbles at a kick or a blow, but the fragments do
not melt; it is years--possibly _ages_--since this ice was water.  And
look at the edges of the blocks; they are rounded and worn away by the
constant abrading action of the wind, the snow, the hail, and possibly
the rain, which has beaten upon them through unnumbered years.  It is no
wonder that this is a lifeless solitude; there is nothing here capable
of sustaining the life of even the meanest insect.  Let us return to the
ship, my friends, and hasten over this part of our journey; we shall
meet with nothing worthy of interest until we reach the Pole, which
itself will probably prove to be merely an undistinguishable spot in
just such a waste as this."

The professor was, however mistaken; a most interesting discovery
awaited them at no very great distance ahead.  They returned to the ship
oppressed with a vague feeling of melancholy foreboding for which they
could not account, but which was doubtless attributable to the gloomy
cheerless aspect of their surroundings, and, releasing the ship from the
hold of her grip-anchors, resumed their way northward at the _Flying
Fish's_ utmost speed.

Half an hour later, however, they suddenly checked their flight and
diverged a mile to the eastward of their former course to examine an
object which Mildmay's quick eye had detected.  The object--or objects
rather, for there were two of them--proved to be short poles or spars
about twenty-five feet apart, projecting about twelve feet out of the
ice, and surmounted by the skeleton framework of what seemed to have
been at one time small bulwarked platforms.  Wondering what they could
possibly be, and by whom placed in so out-of-the-way a region, but
thinking they might possibly mark cairns or places of deposit inclosing
the records of some long-lost expedition, they resolved to stop and
institute a thorough examination.

They were fortunate enough to find a smooth and level spot suitable for
grounding the _Flying Fish_ upon, at a distance of barely a quarter of a
mile from the objects of their interest; and it being by that time six
o'clock in the evening, and too late to do any good before dinner, they
secured the ship there for the night--taking the precaution of fully
weighting her down with compressed air in addition to mooring her firmly
to the ice by her four grip-anchors.  It was a most happy inspiration
which impelled them to take this precaution; for when they arose next
morning a terrific gale from the northward was blowing, accompanied by a
heavy ceaseless fall of snow; and, well secured as the ship was both by
her weight and by her anchors, she fairly trembled at times with the
violence of the blast.  Had she been dependent only upon her anchors and
her own unassisted weight--which the reader will remember was very
trifling notwithstanding her immense dimensions--she would infallibly
have been whirled away like a bubble upon the wings of the gale.  The
highly-compressed air, however, held her securely down upon her icy bed,
and, beyond imparting an occasional tremor, as already mentioned, the
tempest, fierce as it was, had no power to move her.

In such terrible weather it was of course useless to think of pursuing
their investigations; it would, indeed, have been the sheerest madness
to have attempted to face the furious gale, with its deadly cold and the
blinding whirling snow.  The travellers were therefore compelled to
spend an inactive day.  For this, however, they were by no means sorry;
they had been keeping rather late hours since entering the Arctic
circle, and this interval of inaction afforded them an opportunity of
securing their arrears of rest.  Besides this there were sketches to
complete, and a thousand little odd matters to attend to--to such an
extent, indeed, that when they once began work they wondered at their
own thoughtlessness in not having attended to them before.  Thus
employed, with occasional interludes of meditative gazing out upon the
ceaseless whirling rush of the snow, the day passed rapidly and
pleasantly away, wound up by an hour or two of vocal and instrumental
music after dinner.  They retired early to their warm comfortable state-
rooms that night, and were lulled to sweet dreamless slumber by the
howling of the gale outside.

The four following days were spent in the same manner--the gale lasting
all that time with unabated fury, accompanied by an almost ceaseless
fall of snow.  But on the fifth day the weather moderated; the snow
ceased, or at all events fell only intermittently; the wind backed round
and blew from the south-west; and the exterior temperature, which during
the gale had fallen to thirty-three degrees below zero, rose twenty
degrees.  The sky was still overcast and lowering, it is true, and the
cold was still intense.  But notwithstanding this the weather, compared
with that of the preceding five days, seemed positively fine; and,
wrapping themselves up in their warmest clothing, and arming themselves
with pick and shovel, they set out to discover if possible what lay
concealed beneath the two queer-looking poles.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

AN INTERESTING RELIC.

They issued from the ship through the trap-door in her bottom; and no
sooner did they find themselves in the open air than an almost
uncontrollable impulse seized them to go back again.  The contrast
between the warm comfortable temperature of the ship's interior and the
bitter piercing cold without was so great that at first the latter felt
quite unendurable.  They, however, persevered; and, after perhaps ten
minutes of intense suffering, the severe exercise of scrambling over the
rotten slippery hummocks somewhat restored their impeded circulation,
and they began to feel that, perhaps, after all, they might be able to
do something toward the execution of their self-imposed task.  The mere
act of breathing, however, continued to be exceedingly painful; and when
they at length reached the spot of which they were in search, they were
able to fully realise, for the first time in their lives, the incredible
difficulties attendant upon the exploration of the regions within the
polar circles.

On a nearer inspection of the two poles they proved to be stout spars
about the thickness of a man's leg; and, from the appearance in each of
a sort of sheave-hole, Lieutenant Mildmay declared his conviction that
they were the masts of a small ship.  They were very rotten, however,
and, if Mildmay's surmise was indeed correct, the craft must have been
under the ice for a very long time.  The mere suggestion was enough to
fully arouse their curiosity; and, forgetful for the moment of the
intense cold, to which they were already in a measure growing
accustomed, they set to work with a will plying pick-axe and shovel upon
the ice with such small dexterity as they possessed.

The task to which they had devoted themselves was, after all, not a very
difficult one, the ice, especially that of ancient formation, yielding
readily before the vigorous strokes of their picks; and it soon became
evident that they could work to greater advantage by dividing themselves
into two gangs of two each; one gang breaking up the ice with the pick,
and the other shovelling away the debris.  The low temperature, however,
made the work very exhausting; and by lunch time they had only succeeded
in excavating a hole some twenty-five feet long--or the distance between
the two masts--by six feet wide and four feet deep.  They had widened
this excavation by a couple of feet and sunk it some four feet deeper by
six o'clock that evening; and then they knocked off work for the day,
returning to the _Flying Fish_ stiff, and exhausted with their unwonted
exertions, but with more voracious appetites than they ever remembered
experiencing before.

In this way they laboured day after day for ten days; being greatly
hindered in their operations by frequent showers of snow, which filled
up their excavation almost as rapidly as they made it, until, beginning
to lose patience at their slow progress, they resolved to run a little
risk, and the professor was induced to employ a minute portion of his
explosive compound in blowing away the sides of the pit to a sufficient
extent to allow of the snow drifting out with the wind instead of
lodging in the bottom.  This engineering feat was successfully
accomplished without apparent damage to the object they sought to bring
to light; and, thus encouraged, they further cautiously employed the
compound in breaking up the ice, with the triumphant result that, on the
evening of the thirteenth day before giving up work, they succeeded in
uncovering the deck of a craft measuring eighty feet long over all by
sixteen feet beam.  They were now intensely excited and elated, as they
had every reason to believe that--judging from certain peculiarities of
build which had already revealed themselves--they had discovered a most
interesting relic.

The next morning was most fortunately as fine as they could reasonably
expect it to be in that stormy and desolate region; and, commencing work
at an early hour--having, moreover, by this time acquired quite a
respectable dexterity in the use of their tools--they succeeded by lunch
time in laying completely bare the entire hull of what proved most
unmistakably to be a veritable ancient Viking ship.

This intensely interesting relic was, as already stated, eighty feet
long by sixteen feet beam; with a depth of hold in midships, as they now
found, of eight feet; she must therefore have been at the time of her
launch quite a noble specimen of naval architecture.  She was of course
built of wood, and was beautifully moulded fore and aft; her stem and
stern-posts were carried to a height of five feet above her rail; and
the former was finished off with a rather roughly hewn but vigorously
modelled horse's head, whilst the latter terminated in an elaborately
carved piece of scroll-work.  She was fully decked, with a sort of
monkey-poop aft, about two and a half feet high and twenty feet long,
beneath which was her principal cabin.  Her bulwarks and rail were very
solidly constructed; the former being pierced with rowlock holes for
sixteen oars or sweeps of a side, in addition to holes abaft, one on
each side of, and near the stern-post, for the short broad-bladed
steering paddles.  Both of these paddles, together with twenty-three
oars and two square sails, shaped somewhat like lugs and still attached
to their yards, were found stowed fore and aft amidships on the vessel's
deck.  They were all in an excellent state of preservation, as were also
the lower portions of the masts; indeed it was only that portion of
these spars which had been long exposed to the air which showed signs of
rot, the upper extremities being most rotten, whilst the parts close to
the deck were perfectly sound.

Having fully satisfied their curiosity with regard to the exterior of
this interesting craft, they next essayed to penetrate below by forcing
open the after hatch.  On removing the cover a small and almost
perpendicular ladder was revealed, down which Mildmay rapidly made his
way.  On reaching the bottom he found himself in a small vestibule or
ante-room, the floor, sides, and ceiling of which were thickly cased
with smooth glassy ice, long icicles of varying thicknesses also
depending from the beams and deck planking overhead.  He could trace the
existence of a door in the middle of the bulkhead facing him; but it was
hermetically sealed with the thick coating of ice before mentioned, and
the removal of this occupied over half an hour.  Whilst he was thus
engaged the rest of the party at his suggestion returned to the _Flying
Fish_ for the small electric lamps used in their diving operations; and
when they returned he was just about ready to force open the door of the
after cabin.  This was accomplished without much difficulty, and a faint
sickly odour at once became apparent, issuing from the interior of the
cabin.

Consumed by curiosity, the party pressed eagerly forward through the
doorway, and a most extraordinary sight at once revealed itself.  The
cabin was a tolerably roomy apartment for the size of the vessel, having
for furniture a solid handsomely carved oaken table in the centre,
shaped to suit the narrowing dimensions of the vessel abaft, and side
benches or lockers all round the sides.  The walls or inner planking of
the ship were thickly covered with seal, walrus, and white bear skins,
evidently hung there to prevent, as far as possible, the penetration of
the extreme cold through the ship's sides; and upon large nails, driven
through these and into the planks, were hung various trophies of
weapons, such as long two-handed swords, small shields or targets, maces
with heavy iron-spiked heads, short-handled battle-axes, spears,
unstrung bows, and quivers of arrows.  But it was not these objects,
interesting as they were, which first riveted the attention of the
intruders; it was upon _the occupants of the cabin_ that their startled
glances fixed themselves.  Yes, strange as it may seem, the four
nineteenth-century travellers found themselves face to face with some at
least of the hardy crew who had stood on the deck waving their last
good-bye to wives, children, or sweethearts--who shall say how many
years ago?--when that stout galley swept out of harbour with pennons
flying, oars flashing, and arms glancing, maybe, in the brilliant
sunshine, as she started on the enterprise of wild adventure from which
she was never to return.  The inmates were four in number.  Three of
them were reclining on the lockers, their heads pillowed upon, and their
bodies thickly covered with skins, whilst the fourth, doubtless the
master spirit of the expedition, sat as in life at the narrow or after
end of the table, his body supported in a massive quaintly carved oaken
chair.

The bodies, the floor, the table, and every article in the cabin were
thickly coated with frost-rime, which glittered with a diamond-like
lustre in the cold keen light of the electric lamps, and the first act
of the visitors was to carefully remove and clear away this frost
coating.  To their intense satisfaction this task was accomplished by
gentle brushing without the slightest difficulty, and they were then
able to minutely inspect the bodies of these ancient sea kings.  They
were in a state of surprisingly perfect preservation, and indeed had the
appearance of having only recently fallen asleep, the intense cold
having seized upon them with such fierce rapidity that their bodies had
completely congealed before even the primary stages of decay had had
time to manifest themselves.  Indeed, judging from appearances, they had
succumbed, in the first instance, to starvation, and, overcome by
weakness, had been frozen to death.  They were all of lofty stature and
muscular build, with fair hair and tawny beards and moustaches, the
latter worn extremely long.  They were fully clad, all in garments of
the same general character, excepting that those of the seated figure
appeared to be of somewhat finer material than those of his companions.
These garments, the outer ones, that is to say, consisted of a thick
leathern tunic confined at the waist by a broad belt, and leather
drawers reaching from the waist to the ankles, thick leather socks or
stockings, and sandals laced to the feet and legs by leather thongs.
The tunic of the chief was elaborately embroidered on the breast in
silk, a winged black horse being the central and most conspicuous
design.  The trophy hanging at the back of the sitter's chair consisted
of a small circular shield, with a formidable axe, double-handed sword,
and mace crossing each other, behind it, the whole being surmounted by a
handsome bronze headpiece, or helmet without a visor, having a large
pair of finely modelled wings starting from the sides and near the
crown.  The helmets of the other three occupants were of similar shape,
but without ornament of any kind.  Two drinking horns were upon the
table, one being plainly mounted in bronze, and the other elaborately
mounted in silver and supported upon three legs modelled after those of
the horse, the fourth leg being lifted in the attitude of pawing the
ground.

But perhaps the most interesting object of all was a sheet of parchment
which lay stretched upon the table before the sitter, and which he had
evidently been studying when the drowsiness of death seized him, and,
sinking back in his chair, he had closed his eyes for ever.  This
parchment was, of course, stiff with the frost of centuries; but by
exercising the utmost care the finders succeeded in conveying it intact
to the _Flying Fish_, and in thawing it out, when it was found to be
covered with a rude but vigorously drawn sketch or chart, representing
with surprising accuracy of outline--but without much attention to
scale--the whole of the channel between the west coast of Greenland and
the east coast of America, and showing, at the top or northern margin,
an irregular line _evidently intended to represent land_.  And in the
top left-hand corner of the chart was a square space marked off as a
separate and distinct chart, the centre of which was occupied by an
island, the southern coast-line of which corresponded in shape with the
line drawn next the northern margin of the main or principal chart.
Rudely drawn figures of the whale, narwhal, walrus, seal, and polar bear
were sketched here and there upon the chart, as though to indicate spots
where these animals had been seen by the author of the document; and on
the island shown in the small subsidiary chart, great numbers of animals
were drawn, among those represented being hares, foxes, deer, seals, and
_elephants_, besides others which the travellers failed to identify.
There was also a sketch of a ship--very similar in appearance to the
craft from which the chart had been taken--represented as _sailing away
from the island_.  This particular sketch was the source of much
speculation on the part of the quartette; Sir Reginald and the colonel
being disposed to regard it as an insertion for the purpose merely of
giving a more effective appearance to the chart, whilst the professor
and Mildmay were of opinion that it was intended to convey an intimation
that the mysterious island had actually been visited.

The above particulars, it need scarcely be said, were ascertained and
the surmises discussed after dinner that day; the party not leaving the
galley until they had effected a thorough and exhaustive examination of
her from stem to stern.  They found little else of interest on board
her, however, except ten more bodies in the large fore-cabin or
forecastle of the craft.  The store-rooms occupied the central portion
of the vessel, being accessible only from the after end, and the fact
that they were clean swept of everything which could by any possibility
have served for food, tended to confirm the impression that the
expedition had perished of starvation.  One or two documents and a
massive vellum-bound book were discovered, and these, together with some
of the armour and weapons found on board, were taken possession of, but
the documents and book proved to be written in a tongue wholly unknown
to either of the discoverers, and they were therefore destined to remain
for some time longer in ignorance of the history of the long-lost
expedition.  One fact only was it possible to discover in connection
with it, which was that the hardy and resolute crew had undoubtedly cut
their way for a very considerable distance into the heart of that vast
field of everlasting ice.  This was most conclusively ascertained by Sir
Reginald and his friends, who, on board the _Flying Fish_, were able to
follow quite unmistakable traces of the channel cut by the unknown
explorers for a distance of fully forty miles to the southward of the
galley itself.

The examination of this strange and interesting craft being at length
completed, the cabin doors were closed, the hatches replaced, and the
ship, with all that she contained, left to the mercy of the weather,
there being no doubt that the excavation so laboriously accomplished
would soon be again filled up by the almost ceaseless snow-fall, and the
ship again concealed in all probability for ever.

The first thing after breakfast on the following morning, the northward
journey was resumed in the face of a perfect hurricane from the
northward, accompanied by so tremendous and incessant a fall of snow
that it was utterly impossible to see anything at a distance of more
than twenty feet in any direction.  It was, of course, quite out of the
question for anyone to venture outside the door of the pilot-house in
such terrible weather; and the cold even inside on the steering platform
was so intense that the breath of the travellers was condensed on their
moustaches, and, instantly congealing, rapidly formed into a mass of ice
which effectually prevented the opening of their mouths.  An attempt was
made to elude the storm by rising into the higher regions of the
atmosphere; but the cold there proved to be so unbearable,
notwithstanding the protection afforded by the stubbornly non-conducting
material of which the _Flying Fish_ was built, that they were compelled
to descend once more, and their journey was continued at about a height
of one thousand feet above the ice, and at a speed of ninety miles per
hour, at which rate of travel they considered that they were stemming
the gale, and perhaps actually progressing to windward some ten miles or
so every hour.

The dreary day lagged slowly on, with the occurrence of no event of
importance, until about four o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the
travellers became conscious of a decided rise of temperature.  By five
o'clock the cold had so greatly diminished that they were compelled to
throw off their thick fur outer clothing; and half an hour later, the
thick dreadnought jackets, which constituted their ordinary outer
covering in bad weather, were also discarded; the snow meanwhile giving
place to sleet, and the sleet in its turn yielding to a deluge of
driving rain.  And, whilst they were still wondering what this singular
phenomenon might portend, a hoarse low muffled roar, accompanied by an
occasional grinding crash, smote upon their ears through the heavy
_swish_ of the rain; the dull white monotonous expanse of the ice-field
was abruptly broken into by a jagged irregular-shaped black blot ahead;
and, almost before they had time to realise the extraordinary change,
the _Flying Fish_ had swept beyond the northern boundary of the immense
expanse of paleocrystic ice, and was careering northward, at an
elevation of about a thousand feet, above the surface of a liquid sea
which raged and chafed and tossed its foamy arms to heaven under the
influence of the fast-diminishing gale.

"Hurrah!" ejaculated the professor; "hurrah!  Scoresby and Kane spoke
the truth; and my pet theory turns out to be correct, after all.
Gentlemen, look round and feast your eyes upon the glorious spectacle of
_an open Polar Sea_!"

Whether it actually _was_ an open sea, or only an unusually wide channel
between two ice-fields, was now the question to be settled.  It
certainly looked like the former; it was completely free of floating
ice, large or small, except the cakes which were broken away by the
waves from the edge of the enormous floe just left behind, and they were
kept by the wind close to their parent mass; the sea ran so high and was
so regular as to convey the idea of a very considerable extent of
"fetch;" and, lastly, there was neither ice nor ice-blink to be seen
anywhere along the whole stretch of the northern horizon.

Impatient to solve this momentous and interesting question, the _Flying
Fish_ was pushed to her utmost speed, causing her to make headway over
the ground, and against the fresh breeze still blowing, at a pace of
about ninety miles per hour.  A quarter of an hour later the rain
ceased, and the flying ship plunged into the midst of a dense fog, so
thick that it was impossible to see even so far as the guard-rail on
either side of the deck.  The temperature had by this time, however,
risen to _thirty-three degrees above zero (Fahrenheit)_, and the
travellers therefore at once resolved to again brave the rigours of the
upper atmosphere.  An immediate ascent was accordingly made, with the
satisfactory result, that at an elevation of three thousand feet above
the sea-level they found themselves once more clear of the fog, with no
perceptible fall of the thermometer, and with a clear view ahead.
Twenty minutes more of travelling, and the northern skirts of the fog-
bank were past, the clouds broke away, and the westering sun cast his
ruddy beams upon the surface of the heaving waters.  The sea was still
without a vestige of ice, and the horizon was perfectly clear ahead.

Consumed with enthusiasm and impatience, the travellers now effected a
descent to the surface of the sea, that having been proved to be the
situation in which the _Flying Fish_ made her greatest speed, and the
journey was promptly proceeded with.  A further run of twenty miles
found them beneath a cloudless sky, with the wind, soft and balmy,
fallen to the gentlest of zephyrs, and the temperature risen to the
extraordinary height of forty-five degrees above zero.  Their delight,
especially that of the professor, was excessive at this wonderful change
in their surroundings within so short a time; indeed von Schalckenberg
became positively extravagant in his demonstrations, dancing about the
deck like a schoolboy, laughing, cheering, clapping his hands, and
uttering the most extraordinary prophecies as to what awaited them at
the now not far distant pole.  The moment was favourable for an
astronomical observation; and the ship, notwithstanding their eagerness
to press forward, was accordingly stopped for a few minutes to take the
necessary sights, after which "Northward ho!" again became their
watchword.  A few minutes sufficed Mildmay to complete his calculations,
and then, amidst vociferous cheering on the part of his companions, he
announced to them the gratifying intelligence that they had approached
to within a distance of _only one hundred and sixty miles of the North
Pole_.

At the moment when this announcement was made it was exactly ten minutes
after six o'clock p.m.  The speed gauge showed that the _Flying Fish_
was then making her way through the water at the rate of one hundred and
fifty miles per hour; in a trifle over one hour more, therefore, if
nothing prevented, they would reach the goal of their northward journey.
Their enthusiasm became almost painful in its intensity; and as the
_Flying Fish_ rushed at headlong speed through the rippling waters,
tossing the wavelets aside in a great outward-curling fringe of
sparkling foam, and as the minutes lagged slowly away, the eyes of the
quartette in the pilot-house were strained with ever-increasing
intensity in their vain efforts to pierce the mysteries of the horizon
ahead.

At exactly twenty minutes to seven o'clock, Mildmay electrified his
companions, and put the finishing touch to their excitement, by raising
an exultant shout of:

"Land ho!"

"Where?"  "Show it me!"  "I can't see it.  You must be mistaken!"
exclaimed his companions in chorus, after a breathless moment of vain
peering into the pearly northern horizon.

"There it is, directly ahead, looking just like the edge of a flat grey
cloud showing above the water's edge," was the reply.

Sure enough it _was_ land; for when once their eyes had been directed to
the proper point there was little difficulty in discerning it.
Moreover, as the ship sped on, it rose rapidly above the horizon, the
grey tint growing every moment darker and more distinct, and a few
minutes later other land, more sharply defined in outline and more
distinctive in colour, rose above the horizon immediately below it,
showing that the table-land first made out lay at some distance from the
southern shore.

And at this auspicious moment the sea began to exhibit signs of the life
which teemed within its depths.  An accidental glance astern showed an
enormous school of whales spouting on the southern horizon; porpoises
undulated sportively to windward; a troop of dolphins suddenly appeared
for a moment alongside the ship, evidently straining every nerve to keep
pace with her; and an occasional sea-otter rose now and then to the
surface of the placid sea, to dive out of sight again the next instant
in quite a ridiculous state of consternation at so unwonted a sight as
the rushing form of the _Flying Fish_.  Flocks of sea-birds of various,
and indeed some of hitherto unknown, kinds next made their appearance,
industriously pursuing their avocation of fishermen, and--unlike the
sea-otters--paying little or no attention to their strange visitors.
And finally, as they drew nearer in with the land, seals of various
kinds were passed, sportively chasing each other, and pausing for a
moment to raise their heads inquisitively and turn their mild glances
upon the flying ship.

When within some ten miles of the land, it was deemed advisable to rise
out of the water and to complete the journey at a few feet above its
surface, thus taking the most effectual of precautions against
accidental collision with a sunken rock.  As the ship drew in still
closer with the land, her speed was reduced; and, at a quarter after
seven o'clock on that calm July evening, she once more settled down,
like a wearied sea-fowl, upon the surface of the water, and let go her
anchor in a depth of twelve fathoms, at a distance of half a mile from
the shore, in a fine roomy well-sheltered bay of crescent form, the two
horns or outer extremities of which rose sheer out of the water in the
form of a pair of bold rocky spurs, backed up on the landward side by a
sweep of low grassy hills, crowned, at a short distance from the shore,
with a forest of majestic pines.

"Well!" ejaculated the professor, as he finally turned away and went
below to dinner, after feasting his eyes on the splendid landscape,
gloriously lighted up by the rays of the evening sun, "I was prepared to
see many unexpected sights in the event of our reaching the North Pole,
but grass and trees!--well, I was _not_ prepared to find _them_."



CHAPTER TWELVE.

ANOTHER STARTLING DISCOVERY.

Notwithstanding the state of excitement which the travellers had been
thrown into by the successful accomplishment of this, the first, and,
perhaps, the most difficult part of their novel enterprise, they managed
to secure a tolerably sound night's rest--if one may venture to term
night any part of the twenty-four hours at that season and in that
region, where the sun had never once sunk beneath the horizon since the
twenty-first of the preceding March, and where the day had still two
months more to run before it should wane into the long six-months' night
of winter.  But, as might be expected, they were up bright and early on
the following morning, eager to explore this strange new polar land, and
scarcely patient enough to sit down and consume with becoming leisure
the appetising breakfast which the still imperturbable George had
provided for them.

The meal, however, like most other matters, had an end at last; and the
travellers felt themselves free to follow the bent of their impatient
inclinations.  But the expedition upon which they were about to enter
was one not to be undertaken without due foresight and preparation.  It
was only to be a preliminary exploration, it is true, only a journey of
some three or four miles into the interior; but the country and the
climate having already proved so extraordinarily at variance with all
their preconceived ideas, who could say what new and strange forms of
animal life might not possibly be lurking within those vast forest
depths?  It therefore behoved them to adopt at least a reasonable amount
of precaution, and so to equip themselves that, in the event of their
encountering new and hitherto unsuspected dangers, they might not find
themselves in a wholly defenceless condition.

The question of the kind of clothing to be worn was soon settled.  The
temperature stood at the extraordinary height (for that latitude) of
fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit; and the air, actually cool and bracing,
felt almost oppressively warm to them after the rigours of the
paleocrystic ice-field; they therefore donned a suit of rough
serviceable cloth of moderate thickness, and stout waterproof leather
walking boots.  Then, for arms, as they were merely going on a
reconnoitring and not a hunting expedition, they decided to take their
large-bore repeating rifles, which, with the explosive shells
constituting their ammunition, would enable the explorers to face
anything.  And lastly, as accident or design might cause them to extend
their ramble beyond its originally intended limits, they adopted the
precaution of providing themselves each with a small light knapsack of
provisions.  Thus equipped they proceeded on deck, raised the two boats
with their davits out of the snug below-deck compartments in which they
had hitherto been concealed, and, lowering the smaller boat of the two,
stepped into her, and were quickly conveyed to the shore.

It was with a curiously mingled feeling of awe and exultation that they
sprang from the boat to the strand, and planted their feet for the first
time upon this hitherto unknown and unvisited ground.

"Behold!" exclaimed the baronet, pointing to their footprints in the
sand; "behold the first human footprints ever impressed upon this soil."
And stepping rapidly forward until he had passed beyond the high-water
mark, he unfurled a small union-jack which he carried in his hand, and,
forcing the butt-end of the staff into the yielding sand, exclaimed:

"In the name of her most gracious majesty Victoria, Queen of Great
Britain and Ireland, I annex this land as a dependency of the British
crown!"

Then they all took off their hats and gave three cheers for the queen;
after which Colonel Lethbridge proposed that the newly-discovered
country be called "Elphinstone Land," a proposition which was carried
with acclamation by a majority of three to one, the dissenting voice
being that of the baronet, who modestly disclaimed the honour of having
the country named after himself.

But _were_ theirs, after all, the first human footprints which had ever
been impressed upon that soil?  A decided answer in the negative awaited
them; for they had not advanced very many yards from the shore when they
came upon an object which, upon examination, proved to be an ancient and
much-rusted spear-head broken short off but with some six inches of the
haft still attached to it.  The travellers felt, greatly disconcerted at
this discovery; it robbed them at once irretrievably of the honour of
being the first discoverers of the North Pole, and showed them that, at
some unknown period in the remote past, there must have existed a man,
or more probably a body of men, who, not only without the exceptional
facilities offered by the possession of such a ship as the _Flying
Fish_, but with, in all probability, ships infinitely inferior to the
worst of those used by modern explorers, had actually achieved the
hitherto deemed impossible feat of piercing the great ice-barrier and
actually reaching the northern pole of the earth.

Who were they?  Of what country could they possibly have been natives?
And why was the fact of their important discovery suffered to sink into
oblivion?  Such were the questions which at once rose to the minds of
the baronet and his companions, and to which their lips spontaneously
gave utterance.

"I think there can be little doubt as to who and what they were,"
remarked the professor.  "They were _Vikings_; and their leader it must
unquestionably have been who drew the chart found by us in the Viking
ship buried in the ice of the paleocrystic sea.  It is his ship which we
see delineated upon the chart; this is the land from which she is
represented as sailing triumphantly away; and it was doubtless this land
which the Viking ship, discovered by us, was making so desperate an
effort to reach when death claimed her crew as its prey.  The other
question, as to why the discovery of this land was suffered to remain an
unknown fact, is not by any means so easy to answer.  Perhaps the man
before whose dead body the chart lay spread open upon the table may have
been its author and the original discoverer of this land; perhaps the
ship represented on the chart and the ship discovered by us may have
been one and the same; she may have been on her homeward voyage; and,
finding the channels to the southward completely blocked with ice, may
have been attempting to force her way back into the open Polar Sea when
her fate overtook her."

"But, admitting for the moment that such may possibly have been the
case," remarked the baronet, "how do you account for the fact that,
whilst she must necessarily have forced her way twice through the
ancient ice, she should have failed in her third attempt?"

"Her third attempt may have been made late in the season," answered the
professor.  "But it is just possible that her final attempt may have
been to force not a _third_ but a _second_ passage through the ice.  She
may have been attempting to return _southward_ instead of northward, as
I just now suggested.  My impression, with respect to the vast field of
paleocrystic ice, is that at certain seasons--as when, for instance, two
or three very mild winters have occurred in succession in the Arctic
circle, followed possibly by exceptionally hot summers--it undergoes
partial disruption, splitting up, in fact, into several lesser fields
which drift for longer or shorter distances out into the open Polar Sea.
The fact that Scoresby, Penny, and Kane all beheld, at different
periods, an open Polar sea, tends to confirm this impression; and the
circumstance that the bows of the galley discovered by us were pointing
to the northward may be due, not to the fact that she was actually
making her way north when finally frozen in, but to the accident of that
portion of the field by which she was surrounded being subsequently
turned completely round whilst adrift.  But what object do I see yonder?
Surely it is not a human habitation?"

It was, however, or at least had been, at some more or less distant
period.  It was the roofless ruin of a once most substantially built
log-hut, measuring some twenty-five feet long by sixteen feet broad.
The roof had fallen in; the log sides were decayed and moss-grown; and
the interior was overgrown with long grass and brambles, with a stately
pine springing to a height of some ninety feet from the very centre of
the structure--all of which incontestably proved its antiquity; but that
it was the work of man--most probably those who had left behind them the
rusty spear-head--there could be no possible doubt.

The party minutely inspected this interesting ruin, but without making
any further discovery, and then pressed forward through the heart of a
belt of pine forest which they had by this time reached.

The walking was not difficult and they made tolerably rapid progress.
That the country was not absolutely tenantless they soon had abundant
proof, for they had not advanced more than half a mile before an Arctic
fox was discovered gliding rapidly away before them.  A little further
on they came unexpectedly upon a herd of moose-deer.  The behaviour of
these animals--naturally extremely shy--conclusively proved that they
had never before met such an enemy as man, for, instead of bounding
rapidly away, as is their wont, they merely ceased feeding for a moment
to stand and gaze curiously upon the new-comers, and then went on
browsing again with the utmost composure.  Their fearlessness offered a
strong temptation to such inveterate sportsmen as Sir Reginald and the
colonel; but not being in actual need of their flesh, and being,
moreover, anxious not to disturb them just then, the party passed
quietly on without firing a shot.  A huge brown bear was the next animal
encountered, and this time the baronet's love of sport overcame his
humanity, bruin falling an easy victim to the noiseless but deadly
percussion shell of Sir Reginald's large-bore rifle.  A solitary
prowling wolf next fell before the equally deadly weapon of the colonel;
and then the explorers emerged on the other side of the forest-belt, and
found themselves on the borders of an extensive tract of tolerably level
country intersected here and there by low hills, with occasional patches
of marshy land, the high flat table-land, which had been the first
object sighted by them when approaching these shores from the southward,
looming up, still misty and grey, at a long distance in the extreme
background of the landscape.

Heading directly for this mountain, as a conspicuous landmark, the party
again pressed forward, and were speedily delighted to observe several
flocks of ptarmigan busily feeding on the crests of the low hills which
here and there crossed the route.  These birds proved rather shy, though
not so much so as to have prevented the sportsmen making a very decent
bag had they been provided with fowling-pieces.  As it was, however, the
birds were, of course, permitted to go free and undisturbed.  A mile
further on a small drove of musk-oxen were seen grazing in the distance,
and, whilst some of the party were watching the animals and discussing
the possibility of stalking them, Mildmay, who had been intently gazing
through his binocular in another direction, startled his companions by
exclaiming, in an almost horrified tone of voice:

"What on earth are those immense creatures moving slowly about in the
valley away yonder?  Surely they _can't_ be elephants?"

"Elephants! my dear fellow, don't be absurd," remonstrated the baronet.
"Where are they?  Oh, ah! now I have them," as he brought his glass to
bear in the right direction.  "By George, they _are_ elephants, though,
and monsters into the bargain.  And, I declare, it seems to me that they
are covered with a thick coat of shaggy hair.  Why, I never saw such a
thing in my life."

"_Elephants?  Covered with hair_?" exclaimed the professor in a voice so
eager that it almost amounted to a scream.  "Lend me a binocular,
somebody; with my usual luck I have left mine at home--on board, I mean.
A thousand thanks, Mildmay, my dear fellow.  Now, where are these
elephants of yours?  Quick, show me where to look for them.  Good
heavens! if it should really be so.  Ah! now I see them.  Yes--yes--they
are--they _must_ be--Gentlemen, as I am a man of science, I solemnly
declare to you the stupendous fact that those extraordinary animals are
neither more nor less than living Mammoths.  I congratulate you,
gentlemen--I congratulate myself.  Ach, himmel! to think that it should
ever be my good fortune to actually behold, not only one, but a whole
herd of living mammoths!  I cannot believe it--yet--yes, there they are;
it is no freak of a disordered imagination, but an actual, positive,
undeniable reality."

The worthy professor was so excited that he could scarcely hold the
binocular firmly enough to look through it, and it was really
laughable--to his companions--to hear his "Ach's" and "Pish's" of
impatience as he vainly strove to steady his trembling hands and get
another good look at the herd of hitherto believed extinct monsters,
which were quietly feeding at a distance of about two miles away.  At
length he, with a comical gesture of despair, restored the borrowed
binocular to Mildmay, and, turning to his companions, exclaimed in a
voice of feverish earnestness:

"Come, my dear friends, why do we stand idly gaping here and wasting
valuable time, when we really have not a moment to lose?  We may never
have such a priceless opportunity again.  Let us press forward, then,
and at all risks secure a specimen of so unique an animal as the
mammoth.  If we were to achieve this and nothing more our success would
be ample repayment for all the anxious thought devoted to the designing
of our vessel, and all the money spent in her construction."

His excitement was contagious, and the baronet, after briefly arranging
with the colonel a plan of operations, invited von Schalckenberg to
follow him; Lethbridge and Mildmay going off in another direction, with
the object of getting on the other side of the animals, and, in co-
operation with the other party, driving them, if possible, within easy
distance of the harbour in which the _Flying Fish_ lay at anchor.

To do this a wide detour was necessary, and it was nearly an hour and a
half later when the four men found themselves in a proper position to
commence the operation of "driving."  They had arranged themselves in
the form of a semicircle round the herd, at a distance of about a
quarter of a mile away, and, at a signal from the baronet, all hands
advanced toward the huge creatures, shouting and gesticulating to the
utmost extent of their several powers.

The mammoths, utterly unsuspicious of danger, had been quietly feeding
among the long grass during the approach of their enemies; but on the
baronet's first signal shout they paused, and, facing rapidly round in
the direction of the noise, raised their trunks in the air and waved
them slowly from side to side as though scenting the air.  The hunters
now redoubled their exertions, fully expecting that, on seeing them, the
animals would wheel about and shamble off in the required direction.
But, to their dismay, the creatures, instead of doing this, no sooner
caught sight of the party than, with upraised trunks and harsh trumpet-
like screams of rage and defiance, they charged furiously straight down
upon them.  The herd numbered ten individuals, four of which appeared to
instantly constitute themselves the defenders of the party; and each of
these promptly selected his own particular enemy, occupying his
attention so fully that the remaining members of the herd were afforded
every facility for escape.

It was a nervous moment for the hunters, who, never having faced such a
creature before, had not the most remote idea of its fighting tactics;
moreover, the aspect of the monsters, with their towering stature of
fully fifteen feet, their thick shaggy coats of rusty brown hair, their
enormous spirally curving tusks, and their small eyes blazing with fury
as they rushed forward to the attack, all combined to produce such a
hideous _tout ensemble_ as might well strike terror to the boldest
heart.  But neither Sir Reginald nor the colonel were the men to shrink
from an encounter when game was before them; Mildmay possessed all the
cool daring and recklessness of the British seaman; and as for the
professor, he would willingly have faced a thousand deaths to secure so
new and rare a specimen of natural history as the creature before him.

The four sportsmen pulled trigger almost simultaneously.  The baronet
and the colonel had each selected the same spot, the eye, as the object
of their aim, and both had been equally successful, the shell in each
case passing upward through the eyeball into the brain, exploding there
and causing instant death.  The professor's fascinated gaze being
riveted upon the wide-open mouth of his own particular adversary, he
seemed to think that the yawning cavern thus revealed would be as good a
place as any to empty his rifle into; and he did so--just in bare time
to bring down his game and save himself from being trampled to a jelly.
Mildmay, however, was not so fortunate.  He seemed to think that it
mattered very little where he directed his aim, so long as he made sure
of hitting the brute _somewhere_, and he therefore fired point-blank at
the chest of the mammoth which was menacing him.  The shell sped true,
but, encountering the thick shaggy coat and the enormously tough hide of
the creature, failed to penetrate the body, and, exploding outside, only
inflicted such wounds as further excited the already angry monster to a
perfect frenzy of rage.  Even at this critical moment there was time for
another shot; but Mildmay most unfortunately forgot that he had nine
loaded chambers still available, and instead of firing again he flung
away his piece and ran for his life.  The race was a disastrously short
one, however; he had not run more than twenty yards when the huge
creature was upon him.  The great uplifted trunk gave one whirl in the
air and descended with force enough to slay an ox.  It struck poor
Mildmay on his right side, and, but for the fortunate accident of his
having at that moment tripped and fallen forward, the lieutenant would
there and then have lost the number of his mess.  As it was, he was sent
whirling through the air like a cricket-ball, to fall senseless, and
bleeding from the nose and mouth, fully forty feet away.  The vindictive
brute instantly turned short off with the evident intention of trampling
his victim to death; but before he could reach the prostrate body a
shell from the colonel's rifle sent him crashing lifeless to the ground.
The remainder of the herd, evidently dismayed at the slaughter of their
companions, now abandoned a half-formed intention which they had at
first manifested to stay and fight it out, and went off in full retreat
with horrible trumpetings of anger and alarm.

The colonel was the first to reach the side of his unfortunate friend,
the professor and the baronet joining him as speedily as their legs
could convey them to the spot.  Very fortunately von Schalckenberg,
among his other multitudinous acquirements, possessed a very fair
knowledge of medicine and surgery; and his skilful fingers were soon at
work removing the lieutenant's clothing so far as was necessary to
investigate the nature and extent of his injuries.  Singularly enough
these were found to be comparatively trifling, a fractured rib and
several very severe bruises being the sum of them.  A little brandy
forced between the lips of the sufferer soon restored him to
consciousness, and he was able to sit up.

On attempting to rise to his feet, however, he experienced such severe
pain that it was then and there resolved to let him remain where he was,
two of his companions also remaining to mount guard over him and see
that he came to no harm; whilst the third was to hurry back with all
speed to the ship and bring her out on to the plain close by the spot
where the accident occurred, when it would be a comparatively easy
matter to convey the lieutenant from the spot where he then lay to his
own bed on board the _Flying Fish_.

The professor, having first made Mildmay as easy and comfortable as
circumstances permitted, volunteered for the service of moving the ship,
explaining to his companions that, in the event of an attack of any
kind, they, as seasoned sportsmen, would be able to far more effectually
defend the wounded man than he could possibly hope to do; and then, Sir
Reginald and the colonel quite concurring in this view, he set off for
the bay, shouting back an assurance as he went that he would not be
absent one moment longer than should prove absolutely necessary.

The worthy scientist was as good as his word; for in less than an hour
from the moment of his departure the immense bulk of the _Flying Fish_
was seen to rise into the air beyond the tops of the distant pine-trees,
and, with her polished hull gleaming and flashing in the rays of the
sun, to sweep gracefully round until she was heading straight in the
direction of the anxious watchers.  Under the professor's able pilotage
she was soon brought to the ground and secured within a dozen yards of
the spot occupied by them, when it was the work of a few minutes only to
convey the injured man to his own stateroom, where his hurts were at
once properly attended to and himself made thoroughly comfortable.

As soon as luncheon was over Sir Reginald and the colonel set out for
the spot were they had shot the bear in the morning, one of them being
armed with a large-bore rifle and the other carrying a fowling-piece;
and on their return somewhat late in the afternoon they bore not only
the skin, skull, and claws of the defunct bruin, but also a goodly bag
of ptarmigan.  During their absence the professor had also been very
busy, dividing his attention pretty evenly between Mildmay and the
finest specimen of the slain mammoths, the latter of which he had
succeeded in nearly half-denuding of its skin.  With the assistance of
his two able-bodied friends this task was completed by dinner-time; and
by the corresponding hour next evening not only was the enormous hide
undergoing the first stage of preparation for the taxidermist, but the
indefatigable labourers had also succeeded in hewing out the tusks of
the other slaughtered mammoths.  For health's sake the ship was then
moved about a mile further inland, and the carcasses were left to the
wolves, which had already gathered in large numbers in the vicinity.

Under the skilful treatment of the professor Mildmay made steady and
rapid progress toward recovery from the very first; the baronet and the
colonel had therefore no hesitation about carrying out a project which
had been under discussion between them for the last two or three days,
and which was neither more nor less than a pedestrian excursion to the
far distant table-land which they had first sighted from the sea.  They
estimated that this goal of their journey, upon which they expected to
find the actual site of the Northern Pole of the earth, must be about
sixty miles distant from the ship; and they considered that the trip
there and back would occupy them about six days.  It would of course
have been very much easier, and more convenient in every way, to have
made the journey on board the _Flying Fish_; but the professor was busy
with the preparation of his mammoth, the skin of which he had carefully
stretched and pegged out on the ground alongside the ship, and was so
averse to the losing sight of it, even for a few hours, that it was soon
decided the _Flying Fish_ must not be moved for the present.  After all,
the journey would probably not involve any very great amount of
hardship; it simply meant camping out for five or six nights, or at
least those hours of the twenty-four which did duty for night.  And this
the two seasoned hunters looked forward to as rather a pleasant change
than otherwise.

The necessary preparations were all made on the previous evening, and
after breakfast on the appointed day the two adventurers set out, taking
leave of Mildmay--who was already out of bed again--and of the
professor, who, to tell the truth, was heartily glad to be left to the
uninterrupted prosecution of his task.

They were in light marching order, having resolved to carry nothing
which they could possibly do without; their previous experience of the
country had taught them that game was pretty plentiful, and that they
might safely depend upon their guns for the supply of their larder; and
their stock of provisions consisted solely, therefore, of a few biscuits
and a substantial flask of brandy each.  The temperature was decidedly
mild, and had been so ever since their arrival at "Elphinstone Land,"
with settled fine weather, and they therefore carried nothing in the
shape of extra clothing save a light macintosh each, which they bore
securely strapped on the top of their knapsacks.  The remainder of their
_impedimenta_ consisted of a double-barrelled gun for each man--one
barrel being rifled and the other a smooth bore--two cartridge belts,
one for the waist and the other for the shoulder, fully stocked; a
formidable double-edged hunting knife each; a capacious waterproof bag
containing a reserve supply of cartridges, and a small stock of matches
and tobacco.

Their road for the first five or six miles led up a gentle acclivity,
just sufficient to make itself felt, but not steep enough to render
walking difficult or fatiguing.  Then came a stretch of flat country,
bounded on each side by the projecting spurs of a range of rugged hills
of fantastic outline which stretched immediately across their path at a
distance of some three or four miles or so.  The pedestrians had not
progressed very far across this plain before their attention became
arrested by a curious phenomenon.  The atmosphere immediately behind the
range of hills last mentioned was thick with fleecy vapour, now so thin
that the distant table-land could be dimly seen through it as through a
veil, and anon so dense that it assumed a decided cloud-like shape upon
which the unsetting sun shone with dazzling brilliancy.  This thickening
of the vapour seemed to occur at tolerably regular intervals of about
twenty minutes each, and was immediately preceded by a sudden silvery
gleam succeeded by a most brilliant and perfectly formed rainbow.  The
periodical recurrence of this singular phenomenon under a perfectly
cloudless sky of course greatly excited the curiosity of the
pedestrians, and they pushed rapidly forward, eager to ascertain the
cause.

As they advanced, the encircling hills thrust their projecting spurs
further and further into the narrowing plain, their slopes became
steeper and more rugged, and rocks began to crop out here and there with
increasing frequency through the lessening soil.  A corresponding change
of course occurred in the character of the landscape; it grew
increasingly picturesque and wild at every step, and at length the
travellers found themselves at the mouth of a narrow rocky boulder-
strewn gorge bounded on either side by titanic masses of volcanic rock,
rugged and moss-grown, with little patches of herbage here and there, or
an occasional stunted pine growing out of an almost imperceptible
fissure.  The only signs of life in this wild spot consisted of a
diminutive musk-ox here and there cropping the scanty herbage half-way
up the apparently inaccessible height in spots from which it appeared
equally impossible for the creature to advance or to retreat.

Plunging into this defile, the travellers advanced with steadily
increasing difficulty, the boulders with which their path was strewed
growing ever larger and more numerous until at length the narrowing road
became completely choked with them, and the only mode of progression was
that of a slow, toilsome, dangerous scramble.  Still the pair pushed
resolutely on, every minute hoping that the difficulties of the journey
would come to an end, and every minute less willing to turn back and
again encounter the obstacles already surmounted.  At length the path
became so narrow that one enormous boulder sufficed to completely block
the way, whilst the perpendicular rocky walls of the chasm towered so
far aloft that only the merest thread of sky was visible; the air grew
chill and damp, and so deep a twilight gloom pervaded the place that it
was difficult to distinguish any object more than half a dozen yards
distant.

The weary travellers looked at each other in dismay.  Was this to be the
ineffectual ending of that long and toilsome scramble through the
ravine?  There was just one single narrow crevice between the huge
boulder which blocked their way, and one of the precipitous walls which
pressed so closely in upon them--a crevice left by the irregular shape
of the block, and affording barely space enough for a man of robust
proportions to squeeze himself through--and they determined that, before
retracing their steps, they would at least satisfy their curiosity so
far as to creep through this crevice and see what lay on the farther
side.  The baronet with some little difficulty squeezed through first,
and his exclamation of astonishment quickly took the colonel to his
side.

The pair found themselves in a narrow rent between the two vertical
faces of rock--the projections of the one accurately corresponding with
the indentations of the other, and clearly demonstrating that, at some
distant period of the earth's history, that mighty chasm had been
suddenly torn open by a great natural convulsion awful in its intensity
beyond all power of imagination.  The rent was roofed in as it were by
boulders which thickly hung suspended and jammed in at varying heights
between the almost touching walls of the rift; and the adventurous
explorers could not repress a shudder as they glanced aloft at these
huge masses and thought of the consequences to themselves which would
ensue should a projecting corner just then yield and suffer its parent
rock to come crashing down to the bottom.  Their first impulse was to
beat a precipitate retreat; their second, to go forward; for at only a
few yards' distance before them the rift closed altogether, except at
the very bottom, where a low cavern-like fissure dimly appeared.  A
hasty consultation passed between them, resulting in a determination to
go forward and explore the fissure.

Fortunately for their purpose they had, at an early stage of their
difficulties, provided themselves with a couple of stoutish pine
branches--wrenched from their parent stems and hurled into the ravine
perchance by some winter storm--to aid them in surmounting the
difficulties of the way, and these they now determined to utilise if
possible as torches.

With some little difficulty the smaller ends of these brands were
induced to kindle; but, once fairly ignited, they blazed up bravely, and
thus provided with the necessary lights the adventurers boldly pushed
forward and plunged into the recesses of the fissure.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AT THE NORTH POLE.

The opening was so low and so narrow, that for the first fifty or sixty
feet the explorers were I obliged to creep forward on their hands and
knees; then it widened and became gradually higher, so that by the time
they had penetrated a couple of hundred feet they were able to resume a
perpendicular attitude.  The cavern, if such it could be called, still
however remained so narrow that it was only here and there possible for
them to walk side by side.  It was also very tortuous; and the heights
varied momentarily, at one time compelling them to stoop almost double
in order to pass beneath some immense projection, and anon increasing so
greatly that the light of their torches failed to reach and reveal the
roof.  They observed several rifts or crevices to the right and left of
them as they pressed forward, but, with one or two exceptions, these
were quite impassable, and those which were not so were still so cramped
that they offered no inducement to deviate from the main passage.

Groping thus in semi-darkness over painfully rough and broken ground, a
full hour was spent, and the colonel was just expressing his conviction
that they must have traversed a distance of fully two miles when a faint
glimmer of daylight revealed itself on one of the rocky walls of the
passage; and, turning sharply round an angle, the pair suddenly found
themselves once more within a few yards of the open air.

Emerging into broad daylight a most wonderful spectacle greeted the two
adventurous explorers.  They found themselves standing on a narrow strip
of coarse sandy beach at the bottom of an immense basin, measuring fully
a mile in diameter, the sides of which were formed of lofty precipitous
cliffs of volcanic rock, so smooth and so nearly vertical that nowhere,
at least in their immediate neighbourhood, could they discover a spot
capable of being scaled.  Before them, and occupying the whole bottom of
this enormous basin, stretched a placid lake, the water of which was as
clear as crystal.  A thin filmy veil of vapour rose everywhere from the
surface of the water, softening the hard outlines of the more distant
landscape, and imparting an aspect of dreamlike witchery and unreality
which it would certainly have otherwise lacked.

"Why, the water is tepid!" exclaimed Sir Reginald, plunging his hand
into the lake and raising a small quantity of its water in his palm, to
ascertain by taste whether it was fresh or salt.

The colonel thereupon thrust _his_ hand down, and satisfied himself by
experiment of the truth of his companion's statement.  It was even more
than tepid, it was positively _warm_.

The two were still discussing the probable reason for this phenomenon
when their attention was suddenly arrested by a curious movement of the
water in the centre of the lake.  First a few tremulous ripples
appeared, spreading outward from the centre; then the disturbance became
more pronounced, until, within a minute, an area of some thirty or forty
yards in diameter had assumed an appearance of violent ebullition.
Suddenly a jet of steam and spray shot up out of the centre of this
disturbed spot; and then, before either of the two bewildered spectators
could find time to remark upon so curious a phenomenon, an immense
column of purest crystal water shot into the air to a height of at least
two hundred feet, and, gleaming and flashing in the sunbeams as it
soared away above the level of the encircling cliffs, spread out into a
dome-like sheet, and, leaving behind it aloft a dense cloud of vapour of
dazzling whiteness, fell again into the lake in the form of a shower of
boiling water.

"A geyser!" exclaimed the baronet.  "A geyser! and of such grandeur that
the Great Geyser of Iceland, which I have seen, sinks into the utmost
insignificance compared with it."

"You are right," acquiesced Lethbridge.  "I too have seen the so-called
Great Geyser, and admired it immensely; but after this--"

He finished with a shrug of the shoulders so expressive that there was
not the slightest need for words to explain his meaning.

"We must bring the professor to see this," he continued after a slight
pause.  "And--look here, Elphinstone--if you wish to intensely gratify
the worthy man, call this geyser after him--`The Von Schalckenberg
Geyser'--eh?  It doesn't sound half bad, does it?"

The baronet laughingly consented to his friend's proposal, the more
readily as he knew that what Lethbridge had said as to the professor's
gratification was perfectly true; and then the wanderers resumed their
journey, passing along the narrow strip of sand which divided the edge
of the water from the base of the cliffs.

"There is no doubt, I think, that this geyser produces the cloud of
vapour and the sudden flashing gleam, at tolerably regular intervals,
which so aroused our curiosity this morning," remarked the baronet as
they plodded somewhat wearily along side by side over the sand.

His companion assented, and then they both paused, and finally flung
themselves down upon the sand to witness a repetition of the eruption,
the premonitory signs of which at that moment made their appearance.
Then, when it was over, finding themselves very comfortable--and very
hungry--they concluded to take luncheon before again moving; and, this
being followed by a pipe, it was after four o'clock in the afternoon
when they once more made a move.

A saunter for three-quarters of an hour along the margin of the lake
enabled them to reach a spot almost directly opposite that where they
had emerged into daylight from the interior of the cavern; and here they
found the point of overflow from the lake.  The chain of hills, which
from their first point of sight had appeared to completely surround the
sheet of water, was here pierced by a narrow valley, through which a
small shallow stream, emanating from the geyser lake, made its devious
way.  As the course of this valley appeared to trend generally in a
northerly direction, or toward the high table-land of which the
travellers were in quest, and as, moreover, the valley appeared to offer
the only exit from the lake basin in a northerly direction, the
travellers decided to follow its course, which they did by keeping close
to the margin of the stream.  This mode of procedure, whilst it afforded
them tolerably easy walking, also enabled them to estimate more
accurately than they had hitherto done, the enormous quantity of water
projected into the air by the geyser; for whilst the stream normally
consisted of a body of water some ten feet wide by three or four inches
deep, it was swollen--at regular intervals of twenty minutes each,
corresponding with the periodical discharge of the geyser--into a
rushing and foaming torrent of about ten feet wide and four feet deep,
lasting thus for about a minute, when the stream again rapidly subsided
to its previous depth.

For a distance of about two miles the stream wound its way over a bed of
exposed rock, beyond which occurred a considerable stretch of coarse
gravelly soil, thickly overgrown with long grass.  The constant flow of
water for untold ages through this bed of gravel had scoured out a
channel nearly forty feet wide by half that depth; the banks being
perfectly vertical, except in a few places where the gravel had crumbled
away to a rather steep slope.

It was whilst the wanderers were passing one of these places that--the
sun being by this time in the western quarter of the heavens, and his
level rays falling directly upon the right bank of the stream--the
baronet's attention was arrested by the appearance of several bright
sparkling gleams emanating from among the _debris_ of the crumbling
bank.  He directed the colonel's attention to these, whereupon the
latter, seized with sudden excitement, scrambled down the bank, waded
across the shallow stream, and in another instant flung himself down
upon his knees on the gravel.  Before the astonished baronet could
follow him he leaped to his feet again, and, whilst he waved some
glittering object above his head, shouted:

"Hurrah! hurrah!  Elphinstone, my dear fellow, we are in luck to-day.
Here is a fabulous fortune for every one of us, to be had merely for the
trouble of picking up.  _This is a bed of diamondiferous gravel_."

Sir Reginald hastened across the stream, and, scrambling half-way up the
bank, joined his companion on the spot where the latter had halted.

"Look here!" exclaimed Lethbridge, holding out for inspection a crystal
as large as a pigeon's egg; "what think you of that for a first find?
And it is of the first water, too."

The baronet took it in his hand and examined it critically.  Then he
handed it back with the remark:

"Well, my dear fellow, I am no judge of diamonds, at least in their
natural uncut state; but if your supposition--that you have discovered a
`bed' or `pocket,' or whatever you call it, of diamonds--be correct, I
most heartily congratulate you."

"You--congratulate--_me_?" gasped the colonel.  "Why, my dear
Elphinstone, what on earth do you mean?  I am much obliged for your
congratulations, certainly; but whether the diamonds here be many or
few, we shall of course all share alike, so you may also congratulate
yourself and our absent friends at the same time.  And as to my
supposition being correct, I have had too much experience at the South
African diamond-fields to make a mistake in such a matter.  Why," he
continued, looking round and picking up two or three more stones, "they
are positively sown broadcast just here--an hour's diligent work in this
spot will make us all rich beyond the power of computation."

"If that be the case," returned the baronet, "then here goes to help
you.  But, mind, I am a rich man already; and not a single stone will I
accept until all three of you are perfectly satisfied that you have
abundantly sufficient for all your requirements."

"Very well," said the colonel.  "Go ahead with that understanding if you
like.  I feel pretty confident that, even upon such terms, you will be
able to take back to England, if all goes well, sufficient gems to make
the future Lady Elphinstone--should there ever be such a personage--a
diamond suite which shall cause her to be the envied of all beholders."

Sir Reginald laughed gleefully.  "I have never yet met a woman charming
enough to induce me to yield up my freedom of action and movement for
her sake, and I do not think it likely I ever shall," he said.

Lethbridge shook his head a little doubtfully, but he was just then so
busy digging down into the gravel with his hunting-knife that he had no
breath to waste in the words of a disclaimer.

The baronet moved away to a distance of some twenty feet, and began
poking about the gravel in a very careless, half-hearted sort of way,
occasionally picking up and slipping into one of his capacious pockets
such crystals as he thought likely to be of value.

Half an hour of this work sufficed him; and, rising to his feet, he
cried: "Spell, ho! as our friend Mildmay would probably observe.  Now,
Lethbridge," as he sauntered up to his companion, "let us compare the
results of our labour."

With this he flung himself down upon the gravel, and, plunging his hand
into his pocket three or four times, produced a goodly little heap of
gems of all sizes, ranging from that of a pea up to stones of fully one
ounce in weight.  Meanwhile the colonel brought his collection to light,
and a very fine one it was, the stones being nearly twice as many as
those gathered by the baronet, though many of them were much smaller.

"Is that all?" asked Sir Reginald.

"_All_?" echoed Lethbridge; "why, my dear sir, what would you have?  If,
after we have quite exhausted the ground here, my share amounts to such
a handsome collection as this, I can assure you I shall be exceedingly
well satisfied.  You have made a most excellent haul too, but I think
mine is the more valuable of the two."

"Perhaps," said the baronet, "_this_ will go some way toward equalising
our finds."  And as he spoke he quietly slipped his hand into his pocket
and smilingly produced a stone fully as large as a hen's egg.

The colonel took it into his hands and critically examined it for
several minutes.  It was most unmistakably a diamond, and that, too, of
the very finest water, without the faintest trace of a flaw of any kind.
He remained silent so long that Sir Reginald grew impatient and finally
blurted out:

"Well, man, what is it?  Is it a diamond, or is it merely a worthless
piece of crystal?  Why don't you speak?"

"Simply," said the colonel as he took a final look at it against the
light and then handed it back, "because I am at a loss for words to
express my admiration.  It _is_ a diamond, and, so far as I know, the
finest that has ever yet been brought to light.  Its value must be
simply fabulous, and I heartily congratulate you on its discovery.
Where did you find it?  Was it deep in the gravel?"

"Come with me and I'll show you," was the reply; and, leading the
colonel back to the spot, Sir Reginald quietly pointed to a hole about
eighteen inches deep which he had excavated, and wherein lay, side by
side, seven other gems equally as fine as the one he had produced.

"Help yourself, my dear fellow," he said with a laugh, "and then let us
be moving; we have our dinner to find yet, you know."

Lethbridge fairly gasped for breath as his eyes first fell upon the
magnificent jewels; but he lost no time in transferring them to his
pocket, and then he turned to the baronet and asked what would be the
best thing for them to do next.

"Let us simply continue our journey," answered the baronet.  "Of course
if these stones which we have found are really diamonds, which I do not
doubt, since you assure me that they are, I am as fully alive as
yourself to the fact that a mine of incalculable wealth lies here at our
feet.  But it will not run away within the next few days.  Let us finish
our exploration and return to the _Flying Fish_.  We will then move her
to this spot, and all hands of us can then go to work at diamond-hunting
in good earnest.  Meanwhile, if these large stones are of such
inestimable value, it seems to me that they are likely to prove, after
all, practically valueless, for the simple reason that nobody will be
found willing to spend the enormous sum which would enable him to become
a purchaser."

"That is very true," answered the colonel with a laugh.  "The stones of
moderate size are what we must hope to realise upon; nevertheless, I
shall not pass over such large ones as may happen to thrust themselves
under my notice, for if we should fail to dispose of them, they will
still come in handy as ornaments for our future wives, in which,
notwithstanding a remark you made a little while ago, I somehow have a
profound belief.  Now, if you are ready to march, so am I."

The pair accordingly shouldered their guns, and, turning their backs for
the time being upon the diamond mine, continued their course down the
valley.

Half an hour later a herd of reindeer was discovered browsing upon the
lichens and mosses which grew plentifully on the rocky spurs of the
range of hills from which the travellers were now emerging, and one of
these was soon afterwards killed with little or no difficulty by means
of a bullet from one of the rifles.  To such experienced hunters as Sir
Reginald and the colonel the task of "breaking up" the deer was an easy
one, and, that done, they went into camp on the spot, and feasted
royally that night upon reindeer tongue and marrow-bones.

The two following days passed uneventfully, that is to say the
travellers met with no adventure specially worth recording.  They passed
through extensive tracts of pine forest, and saw plenty of game, to say
nothing of such valuable fur-bearing animals as the sable and ermine,
both of which animals seemed to be extraordinarily abundant, and late on
the evening of the third day they found themselves at the base of the
table-land, after a somewhat fatiguing but most enjoyable tramp.

The next day was devoted to a thorough examination of the somewhat
remarkable object which they had set out to visit.  It proved to be an
enormous mass of rock, nearly circular in shape, about three miles in
circumference, and towering aloft from the surface of the surrounding
plain to a height of between three and four thousand feet, as nearly as
could be measured without the aid of instruments.  Their idea had of
course been not only to reach this enormous rock, but also to ascend to
its summit, but this they found to be quite impracticable, a journey
round it demonstrating the fact that on all sides its cliffs rose
perpendicularly and without a single break from the base to the flat
summit.  For that time at least they were defeated; but when they
finally turned their backs upon "Mount Mildmay," as they determined to
name it, it was with a fixed resolve that, before many days were over,
they would reach the summit with the aid of the _Flying Fish_.

Their journey back to the ship was marked by no more noteworthy incident
than the sighting in the distance of a herd of mammoths, apparently the
identical animals with which they had already had an encounter.  They
followed a somewhat different route from their outward one, making a
detour round the group of hills which inclosed the "Schalckenberg
Geyser," and arrived at the ship late on the evening of the sixth day
from their departure, weary and somewhat foot-sore it is true, but in
all other respects in the very best of health, and with thoroughly
pleasant memories of their journey.

They were of course welcomed with open arms by the two friends they had
left behind them.  Mildmay, under the professor's skilful treatment, was
rapidly advancing toward complete recovery; and as for the scientist
himself, he was jubilant in the highest degree over the fact that he had
been thoroughly successful in his preparation of that gigantic
"specimen," the mammoth.  A great deal of desultory conversation of
course took place within the first hour of the wanderers' return; but at
last the party settled down, and then followed a recital by Sir Reginald
of the particulars of the journey.  Both the professor and Mildmay were
of course intensely interested in the story, but in different ways.
Mildmay's interest was merely that of the ordinary travelled man of
culture, but von Schalckenberg was disposed to regard everything from
the scientist's view-point, and incessantly broke the continuity of the
narrative by a whole string of questions which neither Sir Reginald nor
the colonel could possibly answer.  He was extravagantly delighted with
both the description of the geyser and the sight of the diamonds, and it
was difficult to say which pleased him most; perhaps the most gratifying
circumstance to him was the information that the geyser had been named
after him, at all events he begged most pathetically that the projected
visit to this most interesting object might be allowed to take
precedence of that to the diamond mine.

Such being the case, it will readily be understood that no pen of mere
ordinary graphic power could hope to adequately portray the ecstasy of
enthusiasm with which the worthy man, two days later, actually viewed
the geyser itself from so advantageous a stand-point as the deck of the
_Flying Fish_; such a task is utterly beyond the powers of the present
narrator and must be left to the vivid imagination of the indulgent
reader.  For over two hours did that amiable and learned scientist sit
immovably in his deck chair with a meerschaum of abnormal dimensions in
his mouth, and with his eyes beaming in a rapt admiration, which was
almost adoration, upon the magnificent spectacle; and it was not until
he had been solemnly assured by the others that he would be excused from
all participation in the task of diamond-hunting and have full liberty
to return to the geyser and spend there the whole of the time during
which the rest of the party might be so engaged, that he consented to
leave the spot at all.

Three days were spent at the diamond mine; and, with the aid of proper
tools obtained from the ship, this time proved sufficient for the
accumulation of such a hoard of priceless gems as would, if disposed of
at even half their market value, realise a magnificent fortune for each
of the lucky finders.

The next move was to the summit of the flat tableland, which was of
course easily reached by the _Flying Fish_.  It proved to be, as had
already been surmised, merely an enormous mass of bare rock, without a
scrap of soil or vegetation of any kind about its surface, and useful
only as a citadel, into which, had it been planted in some more
accessible spot on the earth's surface, it would undoubtedly have been
converted, in which case it would have eclipsed even Gibraltar itself in
the matter of impregnability.  Useless as it was, however, where it
stood, its summit afforded an admirable look-out; and from that point of
vantage the travellers made the discovery that "Elphinstone Land" was an
island, the horizon at that elevation being bounded by the sea on every
side.  The rock was roughly circular in shape, with a circumference of
about three miles, and the travellers made the circuit of the summit in
about an hour and a half, pausing at frequent intervals to admire and
enjoy the magnificent panorama of woods and hills and streams which lay
spread out beneath them.  Herds of elk, reindeer, and musk-oxen were
seen dotted about here and there on the plains below, as well as a
skulking wolf or two, a few Arctic foxes, and other wild animals.  The
herd of mammoths--apparently the only herd in the island--was also seen;
and, with the aid of their telescopes, the travellers were also able to
make out, far away at sea, certain dark moving spots which, from their
alternate appearance above and disappearance beneath the surface, they
judged to be whales.

The chief business of the travellers, however, on the summit of "Mount
Mildmay" was to ascertain whether or no the North Pole of the earth was
or was not situated within its circumference.  This was rightly regarded
as a matter of such great importance that several days were
unhesitatingly devoted to its settlement; and Mildmay, the professor,
and Colonel Lethbridge were busy from breakfast time in the morning
until dinner-time at night, making the most careful observations and
working out the necessary calculations.  These were at length
satisfactorily completed--not one moment too soon, for the sun was daily
dropping nearer and nearer to the horizon--and the trio were enabled,
not only to say that the North Pole _was_ contained within the limits of
the summit, but to plant their feet upon it and to say unhesitatingly
and authoritatively:

"This is the North Pole!"

The position having thus been accurately determined, the next thing was
to mark the spot.

With this object a large triangle was first described about it, and a
point was carefully marked off on each of its sides in such a position
that a line tightly strained from such point to the opposite angle of
the triangle would pass directly through the pole.  This done, an
excavation six feet deep in the solid rock was made, and in its bottom
was deposited a tightly-sealed bottle containing a small parchment
scroll, on which was inscribed a brief statement of the circumstances
connected with the discovery of the spot, with the date, and the
signatures of the joint discoverers.  This bottle was carefully packed
in and buried up with small fragments of rock, and made finally secure
by a covering of excellent concrete, the materials for compounding which
had been carefully and with infinite labour prepared by the professor.
Then, when the concrete had become properly hardened, a substantial
flagstaff of aethereum was stepped into the hole in a position
accurately corresponding with the North Pole of the earth, and also made
secure by being built in or "set" in concrete, which completely filled
the hole.  The professor next, with the aid of a diamond, engraved on
the staff, in bold conspicuous characters, at a height of five feet from
the ground, the words:

"_This staff marks the exact position of the North Pole of the earth_."
And finally, amid cheers from the rest of the party, Sir Reginald
Elphinstone ran the Union Jack up to the staff head and knotted the
halliards so that it would remain there, thus formally claiming for the
British nation the honour of actual discovery.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

SOUTHWARD HO!

So important a matter as the localisation of the Pole having thus been
satisfactorily disposed of, it was next resolved to effect a thorough
exploration of the entire island, including its circumnavigation.  This,
with the aid of the _Flying Fish_, was pretty effectually accomplished
in a fortnight, after which the ship returned to her original anchorage
in the harbour, on the south side of the island, now named Lethbridge
Cove.

Both the forests and the adjacent waters of this favoured hyperborean
land were found to be literally swarming with game and other animals,
some of which afforded in their flesh a welcome change from the
preserved meats with which the ship's larder was stocked, whilst the
chief value of others lay in their "pelts" or skins; and, the
hydrographic features of the island having been carefully ascertained
and recorded, the party, with the exception of von Schalckenberg, now
gave themselves up unreservedly to the pleasures of the chase.  The
professor's tastes lay more in the direction of geology, mineralogy, and
botany, though he was also an enthusiastic naturalist, and thus, whilst
he sallied forth every morning armed with gun, hammer, specimen box for
his botanical treasures, and bag for his minerals, the three others went
their several ways, either armed with traps and guns in search of game,
or in one of the boats, duly provided with dredger, net, and line, in
quest of ocean spoils.

Thus employed, the short remainder of the Arctic summer swiftly passed
away; the sun daily sank nearer and nearer the horizon; the temperature
fell; frost made its appearance, hardening the soil beneath the tread
and coating the pools and puddles and morasses with an ever-thickening
sheet of ice and the vegetation with a delicate tracery of silver; and
at length the day came when the anchor was lifted and the _Flying Fish_
moved some few miles out to sea to enable her occupants to witness the
final disappearance of the sun beneath the southern horizon.  Some
anxiety had been experienced by the travellers for the last few days, as
clouds had been gathering in the sky, with every indication of a speedy
change of weather, and it was feared that the sight, which they had long
been promising themselves, would, after all, be denied them; but at the
last moment, or rather at the last hour, fortune proved favourable to
them; the cloud-bank broke up along the south-western horizon, the
vapours grouped themselves into a series of imposingly picturesque
masses, all aflame with the most gorgeous tints of sunset, and from a
little after eleven o'clock until shortly after noon the thin golden
upper edge of the luminary's disc was visible sweeping imperceptibly
along the purple horizon, until finally, as it reached the point of
disappearance, it glimmered feebly for a moment, and, whilst the
travellers stood watching it bare-headed, sank out of sight.  The Arctic
day was over, and the six months of night and winter had set in.  Not,
it must be understood, that darkness set in immediately--far from it;
for several succeeding days there ensued a weird, delicious, magic, and
ever-deepening twilight; but by the eighth day after the sun's final
disappearance this also had vanished, and night reigned with undisputed
sway.

And now, too, winter laid its icy hand with unrelenting grasp upon this
beauteous polar island; not, however, to desolate it with storm and
howling tempest and the deadly cold with which he visits less favoured
climes, but only to add newer and more unaccustomed beauties to the
scene.  It is true that for the first fortnight after the disappearance
of the sun the weather wore a more or less unsettled aspect.  The sky
became overcast with a canopy of cloud which, light and fleecy at first,
steadily increased in density; and at length, on the travellers emerging
from the pilot-house one morning after breakfast, they found the
motionless air thick with falling snow, which, settling noiselessly
down, had already covered the deck to a depth of some three inches.  The
darkness was of course intense, so much so, indeed, that it was
impossible to see for a distance of half the length of the ship, and for
all that they could see of the land it might as well have been a hundred
miles distant.

This state of things lasted without intermission for the ensuing four
days and kept the travellers close prisoners on board their ship.  This,
however, they in nowise regretted; indeed this short breathing space was
positively welcome to them, for they had plenty of work to do; and, shut
up warm and snug on board the _Flying Fish_, with all her saloons,
cabins, and corridors brilliantly illuminated by the electric light,
they busied themselves in carefully preparing and curing the many unique
specimens of natural history and the various choice skins and furs they
had already accumulated.

But on the morning of the fifth day they found that another change of
weather had taken place, and, on going out on deck, a glorious spectacle
greeted their delighted eyes.  The snowfall had ceased, the sky was once
more cloudless, and the deep sapphire blue was studded with countless
myriads of scintillating stars that gleamed with the cold sharp lustre
which is seen only in periods of very severe frost.  But it was not the
brilliant starlight, beautiful though that was, which drew ejaculations
of wonder and delight from the lips of the entranced beholders; it was
another and a rarer sight which excited their admiration.  As they
looked, the sky immediately overhead, and for a distance of some twenty
degrees all round from the zenith, became tinged with the softest and
most delicate rose-colour, bordering which there suddenly appeared a
broad circle of flashing rays of light, blood-red at the inner rim of
the circle, and merging from thence through the richest purple into
brilliant blue, and from thence, through green of every conceivable
tint, into a clear dazzling yellow at the points of the rays.  These
superbly-tinted rays were animated by a constant motion; now withdrawing
themselves into the main body of the circle as into a sheath, and anon
darting out again until they almost reached the horizon; and so
delicately transparent were they that, notwithstanding their brilliant
colour, the stars were distinctly perceptible through them.  This
magnificent spectacle continued for a full hour with ever-increasing
brilliancy, suffusing sea and land with a quivering glow of prismatic
light, and imparting an aspect of magic, unearthly, indescribable beauty
to the scene.  Then the colours gradually faded, the flashes became more
feeble, and the darting rays ever shorter and shorter, until they
finally faded completely away, to be succeeded shortly afterwards by the
keen silvery radiance of the young crescent moon which slowly rolled
upwards from the horizon, and, shedding her subdued light upon the snow-
clad landscape, invested it with an air of bewitching mystery and
unreality which was distinctly heightened by the profound impressive
silence of the long Arctic night.

With nature thus presenting herself to the travellers in so novel and
attractive a guise a month swiftly passed away, during which they tended
their traps or prosecuted their hunting expeditions under the glorious
light of the aurora, the cold steel-like radiance of the silver moon, or
the dim mysterious starlight; alternating these open-air employments
with assiduous devotion to their easels, in sufficiently clever but
altogether unsuccessful efforts to adequately transfer to canvas the
entrancing beauties of the Arctic scenery and phenomena which constantly
charmed their delighted eyes.

Toward the end of October, however, the temperature had fallen so low
that ice had begun to form all along the coast-line of Elphinstone Land,
and the weather had taken a decided change for the worse.  Moreover, the
party had accumulated so much extra weight in the shape of valuable
skins, natural history specimens, and other curiosities, as to seriously
affect the buoyancy of the _Flying Fish_ as an aerial ship; and they
therefore at last--more than half-reluctantly--came to the determination
to desert the enchanted region of the Pole and wend their way southward.

Accordingly, on the morning of the first day of November the anchor was
hove up; the vapour was turned into the air and water chambers,
producing an almost perfect vacuum; and, rising into the air to an
altitude of about ten thousand feet, the _Flying Fish_ turned her nose
southward, and, illumined by the dazzling effulgence of the most
glorious aurora the voyagers had ever seen, was sent ahead at the utmost
limit of her speed.

It was determined to return to England forthwith, and without pause or
stoppage of any kind, unless some unforeseen necessity should arise, the
object being to dispose of their various acquisitions previous to a
renewal of their wanderings.  The elevation at starting was therefore
maintained, and the ship pursued her headlong flight to the southward
with only one man--Mildmay--in the pilot-house to take charge and enact
the part of look-out; the remainder busying themselves in packing up
their various treasures for transference to safe-keeping on shore.  The
pilot-house, like every other habitable portion of the ship, was
maintained at a comfortable temperature by means of pipes communicating
with the vapour-generating chamber in the engine-room below; and,
reclining at his ease in a most luxurious lounging chair, the lieutenant
had nothing to do but maintain a vigilant lookout through the circular
windows, and solace himself with his pipe meanwhile.  The ship's speed
through the air was about one hundred and twenty miles per hour; and by
their calculations they expected to overtake the sun in about latitude
79 degrees 49 minutes north; if, therefore, the _Flying Fish_ maintained
her speed, the sun ought to appear once more above the horizon in four
hours thirty-five and a half minutes from the time of starting--
Lethbridge Cove being situated in exactly 89 degrees 0 minutes North
latitude.  It was exactly nine o'clock in the morning when they started;
consequently, if their calculations were right, the sun ought to make
his appearance at thirty-five and a half minutes past one; and it was
this phenomenon for which Mildmay was chiefly watching, his companions
being anxious to have the unique experience of seeing the luminary rise
an hour and a half past mid-day.  And it was for this reason, and in
order that they might not on the one hand be taken by surprise by being
hurried southward on the wings of a favouring gale, or on the other hand
be delayed by a possible adverse one, that the elevation of ten thousand
feet had been selected, this being well within the limits of the
_neutral belt_, or zone of motionless air.

Not to be caught napping, Mildmay extinguished the electric light in the
pilot-house as the musical gong of the clock suspended therein struck
the hour of one; after which he rose to his feet and took a good look
round on all sides.  There was, however, nothing to be seen save a vast
sea of cloud beneath his feet and on all sides, as far as the eye could
reach, softly illumined by the light of the star-studded heavens above.
But even as he looked a just perceptible paleness in the deep velvety
blue of the sky to the southward attracted his attention.  He looked
more intently.  Yes, there could be no mistake about it; that pallor of
the southern sky was undoubtedly the first faint indication of the
approaching dawn; and he at once struck two strokes--the appointed
signal--upon the great mellow-toned bell which hung in the pilot-house.

The call was promptly answered by the appearance of his three fellow-
voyagers, who, abandoning whatever they had in hand, rushed helter-
skelter up the saloon staircase and into the pilot-house, anxious to
lose no scrap of that, to them, now novel sight, sunrise.

Rapidly yet imperceptibly the pale dawn stole upward into the sky; the
lustrous stars waxed dim before it, and one by one twinkled out of
sight; a faint roseate flush tinged the sky along the horizon,
brightened first into a rich orange, then into purest amber, the colours
being faintly reflected on the most distant edges of the vast cloud-bank
floating below; and at length, just as the hands of the clock marked
thirty-five minutes after one, an arrowy shaft of pure white light shot
upward into the sky, swiftly followed by another and another; and then,
with a dazzling flash of golden light, the upper edge of the sun's disc
rose slowly into view, soaring higher and higher until the whole of the
glorious luminary was revealed, whilst the rolling sea of cloud above
which the _Flying Fish_ skimmed glowed softly beneath his beams with
varying tints of the most exquisite opal.

This return to the realms of day had a curious effect upon the
travellers.  They had not been conscious of the least depression of
spirits consequent upon their sojourn of more than a month in the region
of uninterrupted night, but it must have affected them, however
unconsciously, to no inconsiderable extent, for now, at the first
glimpse of sunshine, their spirits rose to an extravagant height; they
felt as though they had just effected their escape from some terrible
doom, and they were irresistibly impelled to shake hands with each
other, to exchange congratulations, and to talk all together, laughing
uproariously at even the feeblest attempt at jocularity.

The thoughts of the quartette were, however, speedily diverted by the
ever-imperturbable George, who now sounded the gong for luncheon, and
the whole party at once trundled below, leaving the ship to take care of
herself, as they very safely might, seeing that she was now travelling
down the "first" meridian, or that of Greenwich, with no land ahead
nearer than the Shetland Islands, more than a thousand miles distant.

After luncheon, however, the whole party returned to the pilot-house,
where they spent the time smoking and chatting, talking over their past
adventures, and maturing their further plans, until sunset, when, their
short day having come to an end, they once more retired below to
complete their preparations for a flying visit to London previous to a
resumption of their wanderings.

The question of the disposal of the _Flying Fish_ during the short
period of their absence from her had greatly exercised their minds for a
time.  They were anxious still to avoid for the present, if possible,
anything approaching to notoriety or the attraction of public notice to
their proceedings, and they felt that this could scarcely be done if
they ventured to take so singularly modelled a ship into any British
port, however insignificant; moreover, there are very few harbours or
havens on the British coast capable of receiving a ship with such an
excessive draught of water--namely, forty feet--as that of the _Flying
Fish_.  So they finally decided to sink her off the Isle of Wight (first
of all, of course, taking the precaution to accurately ascertain the
bearings of her berth), and to proceed to Portsmouth in the two boats,
taking with them the spoils of their polar expedition, and trusting to
their own ingenuity to evade such suspicions and speculations as might
be engendered by the somewhat singular circumstances connected with
their arrival, especially as the hour--about half-past four o'clock on
the following morning--at which they would reach the Wight would be
favourable to the execution of their plan.

The night was intensely dark, with a fresh north-easterly gale blowing,
accompanied by frequent rain-squalls, as the voyagers found on
descending to within about a thousand feet of the level of the sea at
midnight, in order to discover, if possible, their whereabouts.  But
they could see nothing save the lights of a few ships and fishing craft
dotted about here and there; the appearance of the latter indicating
that they had already approached to within a short distance of the land;
nor did they sight anything by which to fix their position until first
the light on Flamborough Head and then that on Spurn Point flashed into
view out of the murky darkness.  Then indeed, having satisfactorily
identified those lights, they knew exactly where they were; the course
was altered and shaped anew directly for the spot of their intended
descent, and the ship once more soared to her former elevation.

At twenty minutes after four o'clock a.m. a second descent was made,
when it was found that they were passing over hilly country which they
surmised to be that situated about the borders of the three counties of
Surrey, Hants, and Sussex; and almost immediately afterwards the lights
on the forts in progress of construction at Spithead came into view,
together with the anchor-lights of two or three men-o'-war in the
roadstead, and they knew that the first part of their journey was almost
accomplished.

Precisely at half-past four o'clock the _Flying Fish_ took the water
about two miles to the eastward of the "Noman" fort, and her occupants
at once began the search for a suitable berth for her--a berth, that is
to say, in a position where she would not be likely to be discovered by
the fishermen, and where the depth of water would be sufficient to
permit of the largest man-o'-war passing over her submerged hull without
striking upon it.  To discover such a spot proved by no means an easy
task; but it was accomplished at last, though at a distance considerably
farther out to sea than they had bargained for, and at half-past five
o'clock her anchor was let go in the selected berth.  Cross bearings
were then most carefully taken and entered in each of the travellers'
pocket-books, after which the next task was to get their varied spoils
into the boats and the boats themselves into the water.  This was soon
done, and then all hands, including George and the _chef_, but excluding
the professor, entered the boats and shoved off a few fathoms from the
ship's side, where they anchored.

The first faint signs of dawn were just appearing in the eastern sky
when it became apparent to those in the boats that the huge bulk of the
_Flying Fish_ was disappearing.  Steadily but imperceptibly she settled
lower and lower in the water until her deck was awash and nothing but
her pilot-house remained visible in the dim ghostly light of the early
morning.  A minute more and this too had disappeared, and, as the waves
washed over its top, the baronet carefully lowered over the side of his
boat a rope-ladder, well weighted at the bottom and with an unlit
electric lamp attached to it in such a position as to hang suspended at
a height of about six feet above the bed of the sea.  This lamp was of
course attached to a battery in the boat, and as soon as Sir Reginald
felt the weights at the foot of the ladder touch bottom he sent the
current through the insulated wire, a patch of vivid white light, like a
patch of moonlight, immediately shining out beneath the waves and
showing that the lantern was properly performing its duty.  Then they
waited.

Not for very long, however.  An interval of perhaps five minutes
elapsed, and then a quivering jerky motion became communicated to the
rope-ladder, followed a minute later by the appearance of von
Schalckenberg in his suit of diving armour.  He stepped quietly into the
boat, and whilst he busied himself in doffing his glittering panoply,
the lamp was extinguished, the ladder hauled inboard, the anchors
tripped, and the two boats made their way slowly to the westward,
heading in for Nettlestone Point and the Solent.

They arrived at Portsmouth about half-past seven o'clock, and Sir
Reginald at once made his way to the Custom House to get the boats'
cargoes cleared.  He was fortunate enough to find in the collector a man
with whom he had had several previous transactions, and who was
consequently pretty well acquainted with him.  This facilitated matters
greatly, and by half-past eight the duty (a very considerable sum) had
been paid and the goods passed, so that nothing further remained but to
land everything and have it conveyed to the railway-station for
transmission to town.  This done the two boats were taken into "The
Camber" and put under the care of a trustworthy man, after which the
party breakfasted at the "George," proceeding to town directly
afterwards by the twelve-o'clock express.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A TROOP OF UNICORNS.

A week later, the four friends once more found themselves beneath the
roof of "The Migrants'", where it had been arranged that they were to
meet and take luncheon together prior to their journey down to
Portsmouth to rejoin the _Flying Fish_.  On comparing notes it was found
that each had, according to his own views, made the best possible use of
his time, the professor having not only placed the mammoth's skin in the
hands of an eminent taxidermist, but also prepared and read before the
Royal Society a paper on "The Open Polar Sea," which had created a
profound impression on the collective mind of that august body;
Lethbridge and Mildmay had seized the opportunity for paying a too-long-
deferred visit to their respective mothers; and Sir Reginald had, acting
upon the best obtainable advice, conveyed the four parcels of diamonds
belonging to the party over to Amsterdam, where they had been left in
the care of a thoroughly trustworthy diamond merchant, with instructions
that certain of the jewels were to be cut and set in the handsomest
possible manner, whilst the rest were to be disposed of as opportunity
might offer.  The furs were also satisfactorily got rid of; some of them
having been sold, and the remainder (consisting of all the choicest
skins) placed in the hands of the furriers to be cured and taken care of
until their owners should return to claim them.

The luncheon was a very lively meal; the conversation naturally turning
to the last occasion upon which the travellers had met there; and upon
its conclusion the four friends chartered a couple of hansoms, which
conveyed them to Waterloo station in good time for the Portsmouth
express.

On their arrival at the Harbour station they found George and his French
friend, the cook (both of whom had been granted a week's leave),
dutifully awaiting them on the platform.  The boats, under the care of
the man who had been placed in charge of them, were lying alongside the
adjacent slipway, in accordance with a telegraphed arrangement which had
preceded the travellers; and, entering these, the party at once
proceeded down the harbour, past Southsea and its castle, and out toward
Nettlestone Point.  It was by this time quite dark, save for the light
of the young moon, which was already near her setting, and the boats
were consequently at once urged to their full speed in the direction
where the _Flying Fish_ had been left.

Having originally taken their cross bearings wholly from the shore
lights, the voyagers had now no difficulty whatever in placing the boats
in their proper position.  Arrived on the spot, a sounding-line was
dropped over the side, and the first cast showed that they were floating
exactly over the submerged ship.  The boats were therefore allowed to
drift with the tide until they were clear of the _Flying Fish_, when Sir
Reginald dropped his anchor and ladder, and the professor, who had
already routed out from the stern locker and donned his diving armour,
stepped over the side, adjusted his weights, and quietly disappeared
beneath the surface of the water.  A lapse of perhaps a minute occurred,
when the ladder was found to be hanging limp and loose; a bright white
light flashed upward through the water for a moment, as a signal from
the professor that he had reached the bottom all right; and then the
luminous beam was seen moving slowly forward over the bottom in the
direction of the submerged ship.  Suddenly the light vanished.

"He has reached the ship," the baronet reported to those in the other
boat, who were alternately drifting with the tide and moving up against
it to maintain an easy speaking distance from their consort.  A quarter
of an hour passed, and then a brilliant, dazzling flood of light
streamed out for about ten seconds at apparently no great distance below
the surface, then vanished again.

"All right," remarked Sir Reginald as soon as he saw this; "he has
reached the pilot-house.  Now, George, up with the anchor, my good
fellow, and we will back off a few yards out of harm's way."

The boats accordingly did so, von Schalckenberg allowing them ten
minutes for the operation; then, with a sudden rush and swirl of water,
the huge bulk of the _Flying Fish_ appeared above the surface, looming
black, vast, and mysterious against the faintly luminous horizon.  A
moment more, and the windows of the pilot-house shone out a series of
luminous discs against the darkness, showing that the professor had
lighted up the interior, and that individual himself appeared on deck
hailing the invisible boats with:

"It is all right; everything is just as we left it, and you may come on
board as soon as you like."

Ten minutes later the boats had been hoisted in and stowed away, and the
_Flying Fish_, at an elevation of some three hundred feet above the sea-
level, was moving to the southward and eastward across the placid waters
of the Channel, at the moderate rate of some five-and-twenty miles per
hour.  At midnight, however, after a little music and conversation, the
pace was quickened to about one hundred miles per hour; the altitude was
at the same time increased to ten thousand feet; the course was set to
south, by compass, and the travellers, with a feeling of perfect
security, retired to rest, confident that the professor's clever
automatic devices would not only maintain the ship at her then
elevation, but would also steer her straight in the required direction.

On the following morning at daybreak the travellers found themselves
hovering over the blue Mediterranean, with the African coast at no great
distance, and a town of considerable size directly ahead.  This town was
soon identified as Tunis (near which is the site of ancient Carthage),
and they shortly afterwards passed over it, not unnoticed by the
inhabitants, who, with the aid of the telescope, could be seen pointing
upward at the ship in evident consternation.  Then on over the chain of
hills beyond the town, and they once more found themselves with the sea
beneath them, the ship's course causing her to just skirt the Gulf of
Hammamet, whilst they obtained a splendid view of Lake Kairwan and the
three streams which it absorbs.  Then past Capes Dimas and Kadijah,
across the Gulf of Cabes, and so on to Tripoli, which was reached and
passed soon after the party had risen from breakfast.  At this point the
Mediterranean was finally left behind, and the ship's speed was shortly
afterwards reduced to a rate of about fifteen knots through the air; her
altitude being also decreased to about one thousand feet above the
ground level.

The course was now altered to about south by west (true), and the
travellers passed slowly over the Fezzan country, the borders of the
Libyan Desert, the Soudan, and Dar Zaleh; the prospect beneath and
around them varying with every hour of their progress, from the most
fertile and highly cultivated district, dotted here and there with
straggling villages, to the most sterile and sandy wastes.  They saw but
little game during this portion of their journey, and only descended to
the ground at night, when the vessel was secured by her four grip-
anchors during the hours which her crew devoted to rest.

This uneventful state of affairs continued until they arrived in ten
degrees of north latitude and twenty degrees of east longitude, when
they found themselves fairly beyond the limits of even the most
rudimentary civilisation, and in a country of alternating wooded hill
and grassy, well-watered plain, which had all the appearance of a very
promising hunting district.  The country was very thinly populated, the
native villages being in some cases as much as fifty or sixty miles
apart, whilst in no instance were two villages found within a shorter
distance than twenty miles.  The inhabitants were, as far as could be
seen, fine stalwart specimens of the negro race, evidently skilled in
the chase and, presumably, also in all the arts of savage warfare; but
it was not very easy to form a reliable opinion upon their habits and
mode of life, as whenever the _Flying Fish_ appeared upon the scene they
invariably took to their heels with yells of terror and sought shelter
in the thickest covert they could find.

As the travellers penetrated further in toward the heart of this
district, their anticipations in the matter of game became ever more
abundantly realised; vast herds of antelope of various descriptions, and
including more than one new species, being constantly visible from the
ship's deck whenever she was raised a few hundred feet in the air.  And,
in addition to antelope, a few elephants, an occasional herd of buffalo,
a troop or two of wild horses, a rhinoceros, a family of lions, a
skulking leopard, or a gorilla, was a by no means unusual sight; to say
nothing of the countless troops of monkeys and other unimportant game
with which the country seemed to be literally swarming.

Such a district seemed to be the very realisation of a sportsman's or a
naturalist's dream of paradise; and it was quickly decided that a halt
should be called, and at least a few days devoted to the pursuit of game
and the collection of natural history specimens.  A suitable spot in
which to bring the _Flying Fish_ to earth was accordingly sought for,
and found in a small open space of about thirty acres, almost entirely
surrounded by bush, and in close proximity to a tiny streamlet which
emptied itself into a small shallow lake about half a mile distant from
the selected site.

Here they hunted with moderate success for a week, not killing any very
large amount of game--for they soon discovered that they could do very
little without horses--but managing, by patient stalking and the
secreting of themselves in artfully devised ambushes, to secure a few
choice and rare skins and horns, besides the tusks of eight elephants
and the plumage of over a dozen ostriches.

On the day of their departure from this temporary halting-place,
however, a piece of surprising and wholly unexpected good fortune befell
them.  It was one of those especially glorious mornings which are never
encountered anywhere but in the tropics.  A very heavy dew had fallen
during the night, revivifying the vegetation parched by the fervid heat
of the previous day, and causing the foliage and flowers to glow for a
brief period in their brightest and freshest tints, whilst they exhaled
their choicest odours; and a light cool northerly breeze imparted a
temporary freshness to the early morning air, as yet uninfluenced by the
scarcely risen sun.

They had "broken camp," and had risen to a height of about one thousand
feet above the ground level, preparatory to the resumption of their
southward journey.  An awning was spread over the deck, fore and aft,
under the protecting shade of which they proposed to take breakfast; and
whilst waiting for the meal to be served, the travellers, each seated in
a deck chair, were amusing themselves by inspecting the magnificent
prospect which lay spread out around and beneath them, the more distant
parts of which were being diligently investigated with the aid of their
telescopes.

They were thus engaged when George announced that breakfast was served;
and the professor was just on the point of laying down his instrument,
preparatory to seating himself at the table, when a small group of
animals, which were grazing upon the crest of a distant eminence, swept
for a moment across his field of view.  A certain something of
peculiarity and strangeness in the appearance of the creatures caused
the motion of the telescope to be arrested in mid-sweep, and in another
instant von Schalckenberg, deaf to the calls of his companions and the
respectful reminder of the faithful steward, had his instrument focused
full upon the group of animals.  They were, however, a long way off, and
the mist was now rising so thickly from the surface of the ground that
it was impossible to clearly distinguish them; so the professor
contented himself by going to the pilot-house and directing the ship's
head straight toward the point occupied by the animals.  After which he
carefully noted the time, made a little mental calculation, and seated
himself at the breakfast table, with his watch carefully propped up
before his plate.

His friends were, by this time, so accustomed to the professor's little
peculiarities that no one thought of asking any questions, feeling sure
that an explanation would come all in good time.  Neither did they make
any remark or evince any surprise, beyond a shrug of the shoulders and
an amused elevation of the eyebrows, when the _savant_, glancing at his
watch, hastily rose from the table, and, in his absent-mindedness
carrying with him a fork with a morsel of venison-steak impaled upon its
prongs, hurried away to the pilot-house.  A moment or two later a gentle
jar was felt as the ship came to the ground; but the mist was by this
time so thick that it was difficult to see objects more than a couple of
hundred feet distant, and all that could be clearly made out was that
they had stopped close to a clump of bush of considerable extent.

By the time that breakfast was over, the morning mist, true to its
proverbially evanescent character, had completely passed away, and the
travellers found that they had come to earth on the crest of a slight
eminence, from which an uninterrupted view, of several miles extent over
the surrounding plains, could be obtained in every direction save one,
namely, that between which and the ship stretched the belt of bush.

And now came the professor's explanation:

"You have, doubtless, wondered, gentlemen," said he, "why I have thus
early, and without warning, interrupted our journey.  I will now tell
you.  I have lately been glancing through the book which, you will
remember, I succeeded in recovering from the wreck of the _Daedalus_,
and therein I met with a passage of a most surpassingly interesting
character.  This passage related to the rumoured penetration into this
region of a certain unnamed traveller who is stated to have positively
asserted that he here saw, on more than one occasion, an animal
absolutely identical with the fabled unicorn.  This remarkable statement
at once reminded me that I had, many years ago, seen a paragraph in a
Berlin paper to a similar effect.  The statement was accompanied by an
expression of strong doubt, if not of absolute incredulity, as to its
veracity; an expression which impressed me at the time as being most
cruel and unfair to the claimant for the honours of a new discovery in
natural history; since the discovery was alleged to have been made in a
region which had never before--nor, indeed, has since, until now--been
penetrated by civilised man; or from which, at all events, no civilised
traveller has ever again emerged, if indeed he had been successful in
penetrating it.  Such being the case, as the course we were pursuing
would take us through the very heart of this unknown and unvisited
region, I resolved to maintain a most careful watch for these creatures.
I have done so, and I am sanguine that I have this morning actually
seen a troop of them.  Unfortunately, the mist and the distance together
prevented a clear and distinct view of the animals to which I refer;
but, whatever they may be, I have an idea that they are at this moment
feeding at no great distance on the other side of this belt of bush.
Should such be the case, we have the wind of the animals and ought to
have no great difficulty in stalking them; a proceeding which, if
patiently and cautiously executed, ought to enable us not only to secure
a specimen or two, but also to obtain a slight insight into the habits
of the creature."

The trio addressed felt, one and all, slightly incredulous as to the
realisation of von Schalckenberg's sanguine surmises; but, remembering
the mammoths, they prudently kept their own counsel, and hastened away
to secure their rifles and to make their preparations for a possibly
long and tedious stalk.  They exchanged their suits of dazzling white
nankeen for others of a thin, tough serge of a light greenish-grey tint,
which admirably matched the colour of the long grass through which the
stalk would have to be performed; and, in about a quarter of an hour
from the commencement of their preparations, found themselves standing
outside the huge hull of the ship, and in its shadow, making their final
dispositions for the chase.  These arrangements were soon made.  Sir
Reginald and the professor were to constitute one contingent, Lethbridge
and Mildmay the other; these last being impressively instructed by von
Schalckenberg to take up the most advantageous position possible for
intercepting the flight of the game, but on no account to shoot until
the others had first opened fire.

The two parties then went their several ways, reaching, at about the
same moment, the opposite extremities of the bush belt.  The utmost
caution now became necessary in order to avoid startling the game, if
indeed the professor was right in his conjectures, and the hunters sank
down upon their knees and began a slow and tedious progress through the
long grass.  The professor was fairly quivering with excitement, and all
his companion's efforts were ineffectual to prevent his rising
cautiously to his feet as soon as they had cleared the bush sufficiently
to allow of his obtaining a view beyond.  For a moment or two he glared
anxiously around him, then dropped to his knees again as if shot.

"They are there," he gasped almost inarticulately, "sixteen of them; not
more than half a mile away."

"And what do `_they_' actually prove to be?" murmured the baronet.  "Not
unicorns, of course?"

"Yes, _unicorns_!  Animals with only one horn--the males, that is to
say.  Some have no horns, and those I take to be females."

This was too much for Sir Reginald's curiosity.  He, in his turn, rose
to his feet, ignoring the professor's agonised entreaties for caution,
and, sure enough, within half a mile of where he stood was a herd of
animals so closely resembling the unicorn which figures as one of the
supporters of the royal arms of England that he could hardly credit his
eyes.  He counted the creatures, and found that, as the professor had
stated, there were sixteen of them, all apparently full-grown.  They
very closely approached the zebra in general shape, but were
considerably larger animals, standing about fourteen hands high.  They
were of a beautiful deep cream colour, their legs black below the knee,
and they had short black manes, black switched tails very similar to
that of the gemsbok, and, in the case of four of the animals then in
view, were provided with a single straight black pointed horn projecting
from the very centre of the forehead, just above the level of the eyes.

At length, yielding to the professor's entreaties and remonstrances, the
baronet again sank to his knees and the stalk was resumed.

Soon, however, it became apparent that, from some cause or other, the
animals were growing restless and uneasy.  They frequently ceased
feeding suddenly and gazed about them with an anxious, inquiring look,
as though suspicious of but unable to detect the approach of danger, and
instead of steadily cropping at the grass in one particular spot they
would snatch a few hasty mouthfuls and then move on some ten or a dozen
yards.  And, as it unfortunately happened, their progress was directly
away from the hunters, so that the latter soon found they were booked
for a very long, tedious, and wearisome task.  The stalkers were at
first disposed to regard the uneasiness of the game as due to their own
presence, yet, upon further reflection, this seemed scarcely possible,
for, in the first place, they were all, even to Mildmay and the
professor, tolerably experienced hunters, and were conducting the stalk
in the most approved and sportsmanlike manner, and, in the next place,
they were dead to leeward of the animals, and it was consequently
impossible that the creatures could have scented them.  Both Sir
Reginald and the colonel were thoroughly puzzled; and at length they--
almost simultaneously, as it afterwards appeared--arrived at the same
conclusion, namely, that the unicorns were being stalked by somebody or
something besides themselves, or else that a storm was brewing.

In support of the first idea there was no evidence beyond the mere fact
of the animals' restlessness; but the aspect of the heavens soon became
such as to strongly favour the second.  Whilst the hunters had been
sedulously pursuing their task the sky had gradually lost its pristine
purity of blue and had become a pale colourless grey, in which the sun
seemed to hang like a ghastly white radiant ball, shorn of his beams.
The distant landscape first became unnaturally clear and distinct in all
its details and then became veiled in a sort of murky haze.  Presently a
sharply defined ridge of cloud made its appearance above the south-
western horizon, spreading rapidly toward the zenith, and the hunters
began to realise that they were in for a thorough wetting, if for
nothing worse.  Mildmay, indeed, who was perhaps better acquainted than
anyone else in the party with the character of the tropics, strongly
urged upon his companion, Lethbridge, the desirability of abandoning the
chase and returning with all speed to the ship; and the latter,
impressed by the lieutenant's earnestness, once rose cautiously to his
feet with the intention of signalling a return to the other contingent,
but the baronet and the scientist were at that moment invisible, so the
colonel sank once more on all-fours and the chase went on.

Suddenly a sound like a low growling roar, closely followed by a shrill
scream, came floating down to the hunters upon the wings of the almost
stagnant breeze, and, springing hastily to their feet, they saw that a
magnificent leopard had sprung upon the back of one of the hornless
unicorns, and was tearing savagely at its neck and throat with its teeth
and claws, the rest of the herd, with one exception, being in full
flight.  The exception was a fine male unicorn, which, with bristling
mane and half-averted body, stood motionless save for a quick angry
stamping of his fore-feet upon the ground, watching the unavailing
struggles of his hapless companion.  These were of very short duration,
a staggering gallop of a few yards sufficing to exhaust the victim's
strength, when she reeled and fell headlong to the ground with her
savage rider still clinging tenaciously to her back.  This, apparently,
was the moment which the male unicorn had been waiting for.  Bounding
forward at lightning speed and with lowered head he charged full upon
the prostrate pair, and, as the leopard faced round toward him with an
angry snarl, the long straight pointed horn was levelled and in another
instant the great cat was hurled ruthlessly from the quivering body of
his victim, transfixed through eye and brain by the formidable weapon of
his vengeful antagonist.  The unicorn stood for a moment tossing his
head, apparently half stunned with the tremendous shock; but he quickly
recovered, and was evidently preparing to renew his terrible onslaught
when his quick eye detected the presence of the hunters, who, completely
carried away by the exciting spectacle they had just witnessed, were
standing at their full height in the long grass, fully exposed from
their waists upward, and with the light glancing brightly from the
polished silver-like barrels of their rifles.  A moment's pause was
sufficient for the unicorn; some subtle instinct doubtless taught him
that in the strange beings who had thus unexpectedly revealed themselves
he beheld enemies more dangerous than the most deadly of his four-footed
foes; and, wheeling quickly about, he uttered a curious barking kind of
neigh and dashed off at a headlong gallop in the direction already taken
by the rest of his companions.

"Good Heavens, we have lost them!" groaned the professor in a perfect
agony of despair.

"Yes," assented the baronet, who next turned to his more distant
companions and hailed them with:

"We have had our trouble for nothing, after all.  The best thing we can
now do is to make our way back to the ship with all speed, when we can
renew the pursuit, unless, as seems only too probable, we are about to
have our hands full with the coming storm.  We have not a moment to
lose, I should say; so I would suggest that each of us put his best foot
foremost."

"Ay, ay," replied Mildmay, "crowd sail we must; for, unless I am greatly
mistaken, we are about to have a regular tornado."

"A tornado!" gasped the professor.  "Run--run for your lives; I verily
believe _I forgot to moor the ship_!"

Forgot to moor the ship!  Could such fatal carelessness be possible?  If
so, they must indeed run for their lives; for should the storm burst
before they reached the ship she would be whirled away over the plain
like an empty bladder before the blast, to what distance and with what
results it was difficult just then to foreshadow; but among the
possibilities which instantly presented themselves to the mind was that
of death to the two inmates of the ship, irreparable damage to the craft
herself, and four persons left to shift for themselves in the very
centre of Africa, with nothing but the clothes they wore, the rifles
they carried, and about a dozen rounds of ammunition apiece.  The
prospect was appalling enough to send a momentary spasm of horror
thrilling through the stoutest heart there, but it also at the same time
endowed them with a temporary access of almost supernatural energy; and
the four men at once started for the ship at a speed which, even at the
moment and to themselves, seemed incredible.

The distance they had to traverse was but short, a mere half-mile or so
perhaps; but to the runners it seemed, notwithstanding their speed, as
though they would _never_ reach their goal.  The grass was long and
tangled, and rapid progress through it was possible only by a series of
leaps or bounds; any other mode of progression would simply have
resulted in their being tripped up at every other step.  This, to men
unaccustomed to such exercise, was in itself a sufficiently fatiguing
process; but in addition to this they had to contend with the stifling
heat of the stagnant atmosphere, which had been oppressive enough even
whilst they had been in a condition of comparative inactivity; now it
seemed to completely sap their strength and cause their limbs to hang
heavy as lead about them.  Then, too, the air had become so rarefied
that it seemed impossible to breathe, whilst the blood rushed to their
heads, and their hearts thumped against their ribs until it seemed as
though nature could bear the tremendous exertion no more, and that the
runners must drop dead upon the plain.  Still, however, the men sped on,
the portentous aspect of the heavens serving as an effectual spur to
their flagging energies.  The dark slate-coloured cloud had already
reached the zenith, deepening in tint meanwhile until it had grown
almost literally as black as ink.  Presently a few great drops of hot
rain splashed down upon the panting runners; and, as they rounded the
end of the bush clump and came within view of the _Flying Fish_, a
blinding flash of lightning blazed out from the sable canopy overhead,
accompanied by a deafening peal of thunder which rattled and crashed and
boomed and rumbled and rolled until its echoes gradually died away in
the distance.  A perfect deluge of rain almost immediately followed,
wetting the runners to the skin in an instant as effectually as though
they had been plunged into the sea.  This lasted for perhaps ten
seconds, during which every object, even to the racing figures of their
companions, was hidden from view by the dense volume of falling water.
Then the rain ceased as abruptly as it had begun, the travellers finding
themselves at the same instant close to the towering hull of the _Flying
Fish_.

"Last man in, close the trap!" gasped the baronet as he dashed up first
to the opening in the ship's bottom.  The others were only a few yards
behind him and heard his command; so he wasted no more time in
conversation, but bounded up the long spiral staircase leading to the
pilot-house, having reached which he laid his hands upon the engine
lever and tiller, and gaspingly awaited the signal shout which should
tell him he might move the ship, gazing anxiously out through the
windows meanwhile on the watch for some sign of the bursting of the
hurricane.

He had not long to wait.  Almost before he had found time to remove his
hat and wipe the perspiration from his brow a shout came echoing up the
staircase shaft from the bottom of the ship, announcing the fact that
the trap-door was securely closed; and Sir Reginald instantly raised the
ship from the ground, sending the engines gently ahead at the same
moment, and putting the helm hard over so as to bring the _Flying Fish_
stem-on to the direction from which he expected the hurricane.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

A BATTLE ON LAKE TANGANYIKA.

The ship had risen about one hundred feet from the ground, and her
engines had just completed a single revolution, when the black pall of
murky cloud suddenly burst apart on the south-western horizon, revealing
a broad patch of livid coppery-looking sky behind it; and at the same
moment a low moaning sound became audible in the breathless air.  A dull
smoky grey veil of vapour seemed at the same time to overspread the more
distant features of the landscape in that quarter, and through it the
baronet and his three companions, who had now rejoined him, saw the
trees and foliage of the most remote clumps of bush bowing themselves
almost to the ground before some mighty invisible force.  The moaning
sound rapidly increased in power and volume, the cloud of vapour rushed
down toward them with appalling speed; the long billowy grass was
flattened down to the earth, as if under the pressure of a heavy roller;
the successive clumps of bush were seen to yield one after the other to
the resistless power of the hurricane, and the air in that direction
grew dark with the leaves and branches which were torn from the trees.

"Raise the ship higher.  Lift her above the power of the hurricane
altogether if you have still time to do so," shouted the professor in
Sir Reginald's ear, as the roar of the approaching tornado thundered in
their ears with almost deafening intensity.

"No," shouted back the baronet; "I am going to try the experiment of
seeing how she will bear the stroke of the gale.  Hold on tight all of
you!"

And as he spoke he sent the engines ahead at full speed, and drove the
ship forward right in the teeth of the hurricane.

The next instant, with an appalling burst of sound, the gale was upon
them.  Contrary to their expectations, there was scarcely any
perceptible shock, but the ship's speed was rapidly checked much as is
the speed of an express train when the brakes are suddenly and
powerfully applied, and in some six seconds, though the engines were
still going ahead at their utmost speed, the progress of the _Flying
Fish_ over the ground was as effectually checked as though she had been
lying at anchor.

Meanwhile the air was one vast volume of awful sound, and thick with the
clouds of dust, and tufts of grass, and leaves, and hurtling branches
which were being whirled furiously along upon the wings of the tornado,
so that the inmates of the pilot-house could neither hear each other
speak nor see any object beyond a quarter of a mile away on either side.
This lasted for perhaps three minutes, when the wind suddenly lulled,
and the ship at once began to forge rapidly ahead.  The lull lasted
perhaps half a minute, and then ensued a repetition of all that had gone
before, excepting that perhaps the wind was not _quite_ so strong as at
the first outburst.  But it was of longer duration, the second
instalment of the gale lasting fully half an hour, after which the wind
gradually dropped to a gentle breeze, the sky cleared, the sun
reappeared in all his wonted splendour, and the air resumed its usual
transparency.

But what a sight was now presented to the view of the travellers; what a
scene of devastation was that which lay outspread around them!  The long
grass was pressed so flat to the ground that it would scarcely have
afforded cover to the smallest animal; stately trees were lying
prostrate, either uprooted altogether, or their massive trunks snapped
short off, whilst others still retained their upright position indeed,
but stood denuded of every branch.  Other trees again, whilst less
mutilated as to their branches, retained only a few straggling leaves
here and there, and the same thing applied to those dense patches of
creeper-like tangled growth known as "bush," the upper portions of which
presented merely a bristling array of leafless twigs.  And in some spots
could be seen huge clumps of "bush" which had been torn bodily out of
the ground and swept remorselessly along for perhaps miles of distance.

But the strangest sight of all was presented by the animals.  From a
height of one thousand feet, to which the _Flying Fish_ had by this time
risen, a very wide extent of the plateau below could be surveyed, and on
this in every direction could be seen the wild creatures of the forest,
the jungle, and the plain, many of them suffering from injuries more or
less severe, received during the progress of the tornado, and all of
them exhibiting unmistakable and in some instances surprising evidences
of demoralisation and terror.  Deer and antelopes of various species lay
crouched upon the ground palpably quivering with fear, or limped
painfully about on three legs, the fourth being doubtless injured
through the creature having been hurled violently to the ground, or
struck by some falling branch.  The lion and his mate could be seen here
and there wandering harmlessly and aimlessly to and fro in the midst of
hundreds of creatures which on ordinary occasions would afford them a
welcome prey, but which were now too completely overcome with terror to
notice their presence.  In one place a fine elephant lay prostrate, his
massive spine apparently broken by the fall of an enormous tree, the
trunk of which had pinned him to the ground; and in another, an immense
assemblage of animals of the most mixed and antagonistic species were
seen huddled promiscuously together under the lee of an immense belt of
bush, where they seemed to have found a shelter from which they were
evidently still afraid to venture.

At length, having seen enough to afford them a tolerably clear idea of
the destruction wrought by the storm, the professor suggested the
retracing of their steps with the object of again finding, if possible,
the troop of unicorns.  The ship was accordingly put about, and in a
short time the spot was reached on which still lay the carcasses of the
leopard and the female unicorn.  Here she was again brought temporarily
to the ground in order that the party might secure the two skins, which
was done; but the hide of the unicorn was so dreadfully lacerated by the
claws of the leopard that the professor was plunged into the lowest
depths of chagrin and despondency.  The pursuit of the lost animals was
now once more taken up; the ship rising to a height of five thousand
feet into the air and then going ahead dead slow in the direction taken
by the unicorns, the four gentlemen, armed with their most powerful
telescopes, posting themselves in advantageous positions on deck and
minutely examining every yard of the ground over which they passed.
This method of proceeding was continued until nightfall without result;
and it then became evident that the animals of which they were in
pursuit had somehow eluded them.

"Well," said the professor, endeavouring to put a good face upon his
disappointment, as, the ship having been carefully brought to earth and
securely moored for the night, the party left the pilot-house and went
below to take their evening bath previous to dinner, "it is
disappointing, but it cannot be helped.  Perhaps we shall be fortunate
enough to encounter them or others to-morrow as we wend our way
southward.  And, _a propos_ of our next destination, I have a suggestion
which I should like to make, and which I will lay before you when we
meet at the dinner-table."

Accordingly, when they had fairly settled down to the meal that evening,
Sir Reginald called upon the scientist for his suggestion or proposal.

"I must preface it," said von Schalckenberg, "by informing you that I
have again been diving into my lamented friend's note-book, which I may
say _en passant_ is the most remarkable volume I have ever come across.
And in it I find, under the heading of `Africa,' a most clever and
scholarly disquisition on `the site of ancient Ophir,' the place from
which it is recorded that David obtained gold for the building of
Solomon's temple.  I need not inflict upon you the various arguments and
authorities which are cited in the endeavour to identity the position of
this most interesting spot; suffice it to say, that I am morally
convinced I can lay my finger upon it on the map.  The principal, indeed
I may say the _only_ reasons why the region has never yet been explored
are, first, its extreme difficulty of access except by sea; and
secondly, the fact that all recorded attempts to penetrate it have been
thwarted by the inhabitants, who are a most jealous, warlike, and savage
race of people.  _We_, however, are fortunately possessed of
exceptional, or I should rather say unique, means of approach to this
unknown country; and my suggestion is that we should--"

"Do it," interrupted the baronet.  "Most certainly we _will_, my dear
sir, and I am exceedingly obliged to you for the proposal.  The
adventure will doubtless possess a piquant flavouring of danger about
it, but I presume that will scarcely be regarded by any of us as a
drawback?" glancing across the table to the colonel and Mildmay.

"Scarcely," echoed Lethbridge lazily, as he held his glass of wine up
critically to the light.

"Did you say `danger?'" laughed Mildmay.  "This craft of yours is so
confoundedly safe, Sir Reginald, that upon my word I have almost
forgotten what danger is; so if you really think you can find a place
where we may once more come within hail of it, pray take us there
without loss of time.  For my part, I am becoming positively effeminate,
and unless I can speedily have a chance of getting my head broken I
shall be utterly ruined for `the service' when I go back to it."

"So be it," said the baronet.  "Ancient Ophir is our next destination;
and we will start to-morrow morning.  You, professor, I know will not
shrink from danger when the solving of so interesting a question is
concerned."

"Ah, ah! try me," laughed the professor joyously--"try me, my friend,
and you shall see."

Accordingly, on the following morning after breakfast a general
adjournment was made to the pilot-house, where, with map and chart
spread out before them, and the professor's treasured volume beside them
for reference, the probable site of ancient Ophir was at length
definitely located; when the course and distance were ascertained, and a
start made.

Being anxious to see as much as possible of the country during their
passage over it, a low rate of speed--averaging about twenty miles per
hour--was maintained; the day's journey beginning at six o'clock in the
morning, and terminating at the same hour in the evening, when a halt
was called and the ship brought to earth for the night.

On the fourth day of this part of their journey, shortly after effecting
their morning's start, they came within sight of an immense lake; and a
slight deviation from their prescribed course was made in order that a
thorough examination of it might be effected.  A long range of hills,
which had been sighted on the previous day, lay on their left hand; and,
on clearing the southern spurs of these, they found that another large
body of water lay beyond or to the eastward of them; a river connecting
the two lakes, afterwards identified by them as lakes Albert Nyanza and
Tanganyika.  Rising in the air to a height of about ten thousand feet,
they slowly traversed the latter from its northern extremity, reaching
its widest part--which they estimated to be about sixty miles across--at
mid-day.

And here a most exciting scene presented itself.  An hour previously a
dark mass had been sighted near the western shore of the lake, which
mass had at first been taken for an island; but, on a nearer approach,
the supposed island had resolved itself into an immense fleet of canoes,
in number about three hundred, manned by from four to twenty men in
each, rapidly making its way toward the western shore.  So large a
concourse of craft, coupled with the fact that the crews were
elaborately "got up" with paint, feathers, and skins, and were well
provided with bows and arrows, spears, shields, and clubs--to say
nothing of a few very antiquated-looking muskets which the travellers'
glasses revealed here and there--seemed to point to the conclusion that
a hostile expedition was afoot, or, rather, afloat; and the explorers
resolved upon a temporary pause in order to watch the course of events.

The natives were so intent upon their paddling that--facing forward as
they all were, with the _Flying Fish_ somewhat in their rear and nearly
a mile above them--not one of them seemed to have detected the near
vicinity of the aerial ship; and the fleet diligently pursued its course
landward, the short broad-bladed paddles moving to the time of a deep,
sonorous, but somewhat monotonous song, which, issuing as it did from
the throats of probably quite two thousand warriors, was distinctly
audible on board the _Flying Fish_, and really had quite an impressive
effect.

The flotilla had reached within about four miles of the shore, and of a
tolerably extensive native settlement built thereon on both sides of a
river which at that point emptied itself into the lake, when a sudden
confused beating of drums and blowing of horns seemed to indicate that
the menaced tribe had at last become awakened to the unpleasant fact
that an invasion of their territory was imminent.  The summons was
responded to with very commendable celerity, the men swarming out of the
settlement like ants out of an ant-heap; and in less than ten minutes
nearly a hundred canoes were launched and manned, and advancing boldly
to meet the enemy, whilst the laggards pushed off by twos and threes as
soon afterwards as they could get down to the beach, all making the most
strenuous efforts to join the main body.

To the observers on board the _Flying Fish_ it seemed that the attacked
party had made a grave mistake in thus taking to their canoes and
advancing in them to meet the enemy; the colonel's impression being that
they would have done better if they had awaited their foes on the beach
and harassed them during their attempt to effect a landing.  But it soon
became evident that the threatened tribe knew perfectly well what they
were about, their canoes being larger and steadier than those of their
opponents, and their method of handling them greatly superior.

The opposing forces encountered each other at a distance of about two
miles from the western shore of the lake, when a simultaneous discharge
of arrows was poured in by both sides, after which the two fleets
closed, and a most determined and sanguinary battle commenced.  The
invaders outnumbered their opponents nearly in the proportion of two to
one; yet the latter not only gallantly held their own, but actually
appeared now and then to gain some slight temporary advantage.  Spears
were thrown and arrows were shot by hundreds; the heavily-knobbed war-
clubs were wielded with untiring activity and terrible effect; and,
occasionally, a flash and a faint puff of smoke followed by a report
told that one of the ancient muskets had been brought into play.  The
shouting of commands, the cries of anguish or defiance, the shrieks of
the wounded, and the yells of triumph united in the creation of a most
deafening din; and that it was not noise only, but work as well, was
speedily manifested by the numerous bodies, splashing and struggling in
the agonies of death, or floating quiescent on the surface of the lake.

"How stubbornly the rascals fight!" remarked Lethbridge at last, when
the battle had been hotly raging for fully three-quarters of an hour
without yielding to either side any decided advantage.  "I wonder what
the quarrel is all about?"

"It is difficult to say," answered the professor, who seemed to consider
the question as addressed to himself; "it may be a simple case of tribal
animosity; it may be an attack of retaliation; or it may be a slave-
hunting expedition.  It is pretty sure to be one or the other of those
three, but it is impossible to say which."

"Well," remarked Mildmay, "whatever the cause of the fight, my
sympathies are all with the weaker side.  Cannot we help the poor
wretches a little?  A shot or two from our rifles--"

"Would ensure to either party a victory," interrupted the baronet.
"Yes; that is quite true.  But how can we tell which party--if either--
is fighting in the cause of right and justice?  We cannot take the part
of either the aggressors or the defenders without a certain lurking
doubt that in so doing we may perhaps be unwittingly giving aid and
encouragement to the evil-doer.  My sympathies are, like yours, on the
side of the defenders; but I am afraid we must let them fight it out
unaided."

And fight it out they did in the most gallant manner, the invaded
baffling all attempts on the part of the invaders to get even a small
portion of their force between them and the shore; and finally, by what
looked like a last supreme and desperate effort, putting the foe to
flight, and pursuing him triumphantly and persistently in his retreat,
harassing his rear, cutting off and capturing stragglers, and in every
possible way worrying and annoying him so thoroughly that, to those on
board the _Flying Fish_, it looked unlikely in the extreme that the
attack, whether provoked or not, would ever be repeated.

The combatants had evidently been far too busy to notice the
extraordinary apparition floating in the sky above them; but just as the
battle was about to commence a crowd of women and children, with a few
decrepit old men, had assembled on the beach, seemingly to watch the
conflict; and on bringing the telescopes to bear on these it soon became
apparent, by their gestures and cries of amazement, that they had seen
the ship.

"Yes," said the professor, peering through his telescope, "they see us
undoubtedly, but they can detect neither form nor details.  The sun is
immediately behind them, you will observe; consequently, as it is
shining full upon our burnished hull, those people, in the position they
now occupy, will be able to see nothing but a shapeless blaze of
dazzling effulgence, which they will doubtless take as an outward
manifestation of their particular deity's favour, and an indication that
he is present to crown their cause with victory."

And indeed there was plenty of evidence to support this singular
opinion, for the people, though evidently astonished beyond measure,
manifested delight rather than fear at what they saw, stretching out
their hands, palms upward, by way of greeting and salute, whilst many
were seen to hurry away to the village and back, bringing with them
offerings of fruit, goats, and fowls, which they ranged in a line ("in
order to make the most of them," as Mildmay suggested) along the margin
of the lake.  The proffered offering was, however, unaccepted, and, the
battle being over, the _Flying Fish_ resumed her course along the centre
line of the lake, reaching its southern extremity in time to select a
halting-place before sunset.

The fourth day following found them within easy distance of their
destination; and the disappointment of the travellers, arising from the
fact that no more unicorns had been seen, was to a very great extent
swallowed up in curiosity as to what lay before them.  Shortly after
effecting their morning's start the fertile region over which they had
hitherto been travelling came abruptly to an end, and they found
themselves passing over an arid sandy desert, utterly destitute of even
the feeblest suggestion of vegetation, without a trace of water or even
of moisture, and of course with no sign of a living creature anywhere
upon it.  So uninteresting a region offered no temptation for loitering
or dalliance, and the speed of the ship was accordingly increased to
about sixty miles an hour over the ground, the pace being maintained
until two o'clock in the afternoon, when a low range of rocky
precipitous hills was reached, beyond which fertility and life once more
resumed their sway.  The travellers computed the stretch of desert over
which they had passed as being fully three hundred miles in extent, and
they could therefore fully understand the difficulty--not to say
impossibility--of approaching Ophir, at all events from a north-westerly
direction.  Speed was now once more reduced, the ship gently gliding
through the hot afternoon air at the rate of about eighteen knots, over
a somewhat rugged, well-wooded country, watered by numerous streams,
with native villages dotted here and there along the banks, in the midst
of well-cultivated maize and tobacco fields, with an occasional patch of
sugar-cane.  Large herds of cattle were also frequently passed, and it
soon became evident that to the natives in charge of these, and indeed
to the inhabitants generally, the apparition of the aerial ship was
productive of a vast amount of curiosity, excitement, and wonder.  These
natives appeared to possess the same power or gift attributed to the
Montenegrins, namely, that of projecting the voice for incredible
distances through the air; and it was speedily apparent that the arrival
of the monster aerial visitant to the country was being orally
telegraphed forward in the direction of her course.  Mounted men were
seen dashing madly along until they reached some eminence favourably
situated for the exercise of their powers, when, dismounting, the
messenger would raise his hands to his lips, and, in a peculiar high-
pitched tone of voice which seemed to have the power of penetrating the
air for an immense distance, send his message echoing forward over hill
and dale, to be instantly caught up and repeated by another.  So smartly
was this novel system of telegraphy performed, that the message actually
outsped the ship, and the travellers found the inhabitants of every
village along their route awaiting _en masse_ their appearance, which
was instantly greeted with loud shouts of astonishment.  At one village
or settlement, which, from its size, appeared to be of more than
ordinary importance, they found, in addition to the general inhabitants,
a squadron of about fifty mounted warriors awaiting them, fully armed
with bow, spear, and shield, and upon the appearance of the _Flying
Fish_ these troops most pluckily ranged themselves directly across her
course and prepared to treat her to a shower of arrows.

"Now is our time to create a wholesome impression of our invincibility
upon these fellows," remarked the baronet, and hurrying to the pilot-
house he caused the ship to sink well within range of the projected
salute.

In an instant every bow was drawn to its utmost tension, a second or two
sufficed the warriors to steady their aim, and then, with a simultaneous
_twang_ of bowstrings, the fifty arrows sped through the air, and,
rattling harmlessly against the ship's gleaming hull, glanced off and
fell to the earth again.  The baronet smartly raised the fore end of the
tiller, and, obedient to her helm, the _Flying Fish_ made a sudden swoop
earthward in the direction of the audacious cavalry, who, already
disconcerted at the utter failure of their attack, at once wheeled short
about, and, with piercing yells of terror, took headlong flight,
jostling and overthrowing each other without the least compunction in
their frantic eagerness to escape.

"There," remarked the baronet, as, steadying the helm, the ship once
more soared to her former elevation, "I hope that will suffice to
convince them that we are not to be attacked with impunity.  If not, we
shall be compelled to read them a sharper lesson."

After that no further attempt at molestation was ventured upon, the
inhabitants simply congregating in close proximity to the doors of their
huts to see the ship go past, watching her stately progress in silent,
awestruck wonder, and obviously holding themselves ready for an instant
dive beneath the fancied shelter of their thatched roofs in the event of
any hostile demonstration on the part of the Mysterious Visitant.

At about half-past five in the evening the hilly character of the
country gave place to that of a wide-stretching level plain, thickly
overgrown with long rank grass, with occasional isolated clumps of bush,
and here and there a tall feathery palm, or a grove of wild plantains or
bamboo.  The faint grey glimmer of the sea appeared on the utmost verge
of the distant horizon, and certain huge shapeless irregularities in the
extreme distance gradually revealed themselves as the colossal remains
of what must at one time have been a city of extraordinary extent and
magnificence.  The ship was brought to earth and secured exactly at six
o'clock, at a distance of some eight or nine miles from the sea, and the
travellers then found themselves surrounded on all sides by gigantic
ruined walls, arches, columns, erect and overturned, huge fragments of
pediments, shattered entablatures, ruined capitals, splintered
pedestals, and crumbling mutilated statues of men and animals, all of
colossal proportions, the buildings being of a massive but ornate and
imposing style of architecture, quite unknown to civilisation.  The ship
had found a resting-place as nearly as possible in the centre of the
ruins, which extended all round her for a distance of nearly three
miles, the eastern half being all aglow with the golden radiance of the
sunset, whilst the western half loomed up black, imposing, and solemnly
mysterious against the clear orange of the evening sky.

"Well," said the professor, as the party slowly paced the deck, watching
in almost silent rapture the swiftly changing glories of the dying day,
the rapid but exquisite gradations of tint on the mouldering ruins which
accompanied the fading light, and the almost instantaneous appearance of
the stars in the darkening heavens--"well, I am equally surprised and
delighted at the result of our resolve to come hither.  Here we find
ourselves in the very heart of savagedom surrounded by the vast remains
of a remote but civilised and evidently highly cultivated race; and
though at present we have nothing more than the merest surmise to help
us to their identification, I have little doubt that the result of our
explorations and investigations will be to satisfy us that we have in
very deed found in these ponderous ruins the remains of Ancient Ophir."



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

A NATIVE CHIEFTAIN'S VISIT TO CLOUDLAND.

The travellers, safely shut up in that impregnable fortress, the hull of
the _Flying Fish_, passed the night in peaceful slumber, undisturbed, in
the confidence begotten of a sense of perfect security, by the weird
cries of the night birds, the incessant howling of the jackals, the
maniacal laugh of the prowling hyena, the occasional roar of the lion,
the loud _whirr_ of myriads of insects, the croaking of bull-frogs, and
the other multitudinous nocturnal sounds which floated in through the
open windows of their state-rooms.  They were early astir in the
morning, eager to commence their investigations as are school-boys to
plunge into the enjoyments of a long-anticipated holiday.  Moved by a
common impulse, they all went out on deck to witness the ruins under the
effect of sunrise previous to their plunge into the matutinal bath; and
it was whilst they were admiring the exquisite beauty of the scene that
the keen-eyed colonel became conscious of the fact that they were
beleaguered by a host of lurking savages.

"Umph!" he commented, "I expected as much."

"You expected as much as what?  What is it, Lethbridge?" asked Sir
Reginald.

"Look there," was the reply; "and there, and there, and there.  Do you
notice anything peculiar in the appearance of the undergrowth about us,
especially where it is thickest?"

"N-o, I can't say that I do--unless you refer to those occasional quick
gleams which come and go here and there.  What are they?  At first I
thought it was the flash of the sun on the dew-laden grass and leaves as
they wave in the wind, but it can hardly be that, or we should see more
of it."

"No," said the colonel, "it is not that; it is the occasional glint of
the sun on a native spear-head.  I have been through the Kaffir war, and
have seen the same thing before, though not so distinctly as now, our
present towering height above the ground giving us an advantage in that
respect which we sadly lacked before.  We are beset by the natives.  You
cannot see _one_, I know, but they are all about us, all the same.  Ah!
look there, just behind that magnolia bush.  Do you see a small dark
object rising slowly into view?  That is the head of a savage, and he
is--ah! now he has ducked again, having caught sight of us."

"And what do you suppose the fellows want?" asked the baronet.  "They
cannot attack us, you know."

"No; but _they_ don't know it.  Their object is to steal up as close as
possible to us in order, in the first place, to satisfy their curiosity,
and, in the second place, to make a sudden swoop if they see any fancied
chance of being successful."

"Well," said Sir Reginald.  "I should like to see the savage who can
reach us so long as we stick to the _Flying Fish_.  But we don't want to
stick to her, so we will leave them undisturbed to satisfy their
curiosity to its fullest extent until after breakfast, when we must
adopt measures either to conciliate them or to terrorise them into
leaving us alone.  Come, gentlemen, we shall be late for breakfast.
What a superb mass of ruins it is!--beats the Acropolis; don't you think
so?"

If the thousand or more savages, who had spent nearly half the night in
accomplishing the engirdlement of the _Flying Fish_, could have heard
and understood the airy way in which the fact of their close proximity
was dismissed by the baronet as a matter of the most trivial importance,
they would have been intensely disgusted.  Happily for their dignity
they were blissfully unconscious of it; and whilst Sir Reginald and his
companions were luxuriating in the bath, and afterwards dallying with a
light but dainty breakfast, the sable warriors continued to close
cautiously in upon the huge white gleaming object which had come into
their midst in so unexpected and extraordinary a manner.  Slowly,
cautiously, with untiring patience, and practising every known art of
savage warfare, the band drew closer and closer, until they found
themselves within about a hundred feet of the hull, and almost
overshadowed by her enormous bulk, when considerations of personal
safety prevailed over the ardour of the warrior burning to distinguish
himself, and further advance was, as by unanimous consent, checked.  The
huge monster, with its gleaming silvery skin and its curiously-shaped
tail, lay so ominously still and silent, with its enormous circular
black eyes so wide open and fixed, that, having heard of its threatening
demonstration against the cavalry who attacked it on the previous day,
they felt certain it meant mischief, and was only waiting for some
foolhardy wight to venture within its reach, to seize and devour him.
They had been despatched by a despotic king to capture or kill the
creature; but, whilst every man there would have emulated his neighbour
in rushing to certain death against the ranks of an enemy, there seemed
to be so little glory in furnishing a breakfast to this monster that
every individual there inwardly resolved that some other man than
himself should be the first to offer himself as a sacrifice.  And,
equally afraid to advance or to retire, there they remained motionless,
and in a state of breathless suspense, waiting for events to develop
themselves.  And there they were distinctly visible from the lofty
stand-point of the _Flying Fish's_ deck when the quartette, cigar in
mouth, emerged from the pilot-house after breakfast.

The situation was decidedly comical, and the travellers indulged in a
hearty laugh at the expense of the discomfited savages.  But it was
obvious that matters could not be allowed to remain in that condition;
the natives must be impressed with the conviction that hostilities were
neither necessary nor desirable, and that it would be to their advantage
to be on terms of amity with the newcomers.  How could this be achieved?
A parley offered the most ready solution of the difficulty; and the
professor--who was a perfect polyglot dictionary in human form--offered
to essay the task of conducting it.  This was by no means his first
introduction to savages; he had encountered them in various parts of the
world before, and had never experienced any very serious difficulty in
communicating with them, so that he felt tolerably sanguine of success
on the present occasion.

"The matter is very simple, I think," remarked the German, as he led the
way to the larboard gangway.  "We want these people to understand that
we are friendly disposed toward them; that they have nothing whatever to
fear from us; that we have not come here to rob them of one tittle of
their possessions; that we merely wish to explore and examine these
ancient ruins; and that, if they will receive us among them as friends,
they will be distinct and decided gainers by the transaction.  Is not
that so?"

"Certainly," remarked the baronet.  "Tell them--if you can--that all we
ask is permission to investigate and explore unmolested; and that if
they will accord us this privilege they shall be substantially
rewarded."

"Very good; I will do my best.  And that reminds me that you had better
order George to bring on deck and open a small case of those beads and
nick-nacks that we provided for such occasions as the present," remarked
the professor.

The baronet returned to the pilot-house to give the order; and von
Schalckenberg drew out his white pocket-handkerchief, waved it two or
three times in the air, and then demanded, in the language he thought
most likely to be intelligible:

"What chief commands the warriors who have assembled to pay homage to
the four Spirits of the Winds?"

Most luckily for the professor's prestige and reputation as an all-wise
Spirit, the dialect he had adopted, though not the language actually
spoken by the tribe he addressed, was so far similar that his question
was understood; and whilst the astounded blacks started to their feet in
dismay at finding themselves at last actually face to face with and
addressed by an avowed Spirit, one of them hesitatingly and timorously
advanced a few paces, threw himself prostrate on the ground, and,
maintaining his posture of humility, stammered out:

"I, Lualamba, am the leader of these warriors, O most potent Spirit."

"Approach, brave Lualamba, and ascend to us by the ladder which we will
let down to you.  We have that to say which must be heard by your ear
alone," commanded the professor, waving his hand majestically.

A rope-ladder was attached to the lower extremity of the side-ladder and
let down to the ground; and the chief, in a state of mind about equally
divided between the extremity of bodily fear on the one hand and pride
at being selected as the recipient of a special communication from the
Spirit Land on the other, hesitatingly and falteringly, and with many
doubtful pauses, advanced until he reached the foot of the ladder, when
his courage failed him, and he came to a dead halt.

"Ascend, and fear not," called out the professor encouragingly; "we are
the friends of your nation, and have forgiven the attack which some of
your people (not knowing us) made upon us yesterday.  We have come
hither to shower gifts and benefits upon you--if you are obedient; but
if you reject our friendship, beware!"

Upon this the savage, no doubt feeling that, by placing himself at the
head of this most unlucky expedition, he had already gone too far to
permit of withdrawal, summoned up all his courage, and, with the air of
a man who knew himself to be treading on mined ground, scrambled up the
swaying ladder, and finally stepped in through the gangway on to the
spacious deck of the _Flying Fish_, upon which he prostrated himself on
his face, laying his shield and weapons--his most valued possessions--as
an offering at the feet of the professor.

The latter, touching him lightly on the shoulder, at once bade him rise;
and, as the chief gathered himself up and regained his feet, von
Schalckenberg threw round the quaking but gratified savage's neck a
string of large opaque, turquoise-blue glass beads, and over his naked
shoulders a length of gaudily-flowered chintz.  A loud shout of
admiration from the crowd of natives below proclaimed the fact that they
had witnessed the bestowal of these gifts, whilst Lualamba,
notwithstanding the august presence in which he found himself, could not
restrain the broad grin of delight which spontaneously overspread his
features.

A few judicious questions, artfully put, soon elicited from the savage
the information that the travellers were now in the country belonging to
M'Bongwele, a fierce, cruel, and jealous despot, so suspicious of
foreigners that the most stringent orders were in force to allow none
such to cross his borders upon any pretence whatever.  This king had
been duly apprised, through the medium of the curious voice-telegraphic
mode of communication already described, of the mysterious arrival in
his dominions on the day previous; and had been so greatly disconcerted
and enraged at the news that he had forthwith issued the most peremptory
orders for the capture or slaughter of the monstrous visitant; and he
was now, according to Lualamba, impatiently awaiting in his palace, a
few miles distant, the intelligence that his order had been executed.
The chief, during the conversation which elicited these facts, had so
far recovered his self-possession and equanimity as to be able to make
the best possible use of his eyes; and, being a very shrewd fellow, he
was not long in arriving at the conclusion that the gigantic monster on
whose back he stood was, after all, nothing more nor less than an
inanimate, though unquestionably wonderful, _vehicle_ of some sort; and
that the fair-skinned beings to whom he was talking, though they claimed
to be the four Spirits of the Winds, were very similar in many respects
to certain white men whom he had seen only a few moons ago.  The wily
savage accordingly made up his mind that, if he could only induce these
beings to accompany him into the king's presence, he would, after all,
have most satisfactorily accomplished his mission; and he forthwith
proceeded, with all the craft and subtlety of which he was master, to
urge upon them the desirability of an immediate visit to king
M'Bongwele, who, averse as he was to the prying visits of strange _men_,
would, he assured them, be highly gratified at the honour of having as
his guests the four Spirits of the Winds.

This proposition, however, by no means accorded with the views of the
travellers; and von Schalckenberg somewhat sternly intimated that,
whilst an interview with M'Bongwele was undoubtedly desirable, it was
_he_ who must visit and pay homage to _them_, and not they to him.  They
had entered the country with the most friendly disposition toward
M'Bongwele and his people, and that friendly disposition would be
manifested to the distinct advantage of the entire nation if the king
showed himself properly appreciative of the honour done him by this
visit.  But if not, king and people would be very severely punished for
the insult offered to their potent visitors, "and," continued the
professor, "in order that Lualamba might see for himself that, in making
this threat, they were indulging in no mere empty boast, he would give
the chief and his followers a single specimen of their power."

Mildmay having, during the progress of this conversation, received a
hint from the professor how to act, had quietly, and as if not
particularly interested in what was going forward, sauntered off to the
pilot-house, where, stationing himself at the engine and other levers
controlling the movements of the ship, he awaited further instructions.

The professor, having promised to give the savages a specimen of their
visitors' power, now waved his right hand very slowly and impressively
skyward, as a signal to the watchful Mildmay, loudly exclaiming as he
did so:

"Lualamba will now accompany the four Spirits of the Winds to yonder
cloud," pointing, as he spoke, to a single small white fleecy cloud
which was floating at the moment across the sun's disc.

Dexterously manipulating the various valves, Mildmay caused the _Flying
Fish_ to rise with a gentle and almost imperceptible motion from the
earth.  So gentle was the movement that Lualamba was utterly unconscious
of it, and it was not until some seconds had elapsed that he fully
realised what was happening.  The savages below, however, no sooner
heard von Schalckenberg's exclamation than, to their inexpressible
horror, they beheld the huge structure, round which they were standing,
lift itself off the earth without the slightest visible effort and begin
to rise into the air.  Many of them were so overpowered by astonishment
that they could only stand, open-mouthed and as motionless as statues,
staring at the extraordinary sight; others, however, remembering the
stringent orders of the king, and feeling that the prize which they had
believed to be so secure was not only escaping them but also carrying
off one of their number, rushed forward, and, whilst some fruitlessly
attempted to grasp and hold the smooth and polished hull, others seized
and clung tenaciously to the rope-ladder.  The weight of some seven or
eight natives clinging to the dangling ladder had, of course, no visible
effect upon the movement of the great ship; and, finding themselves
being helplessly dragged skyward, they let go their hold with a yell of
dismay when they were some four or five yards from the earth, upon which
they dropped back heavily.

The ship once fairly off the ground, Mildmay increased the rarefaction
of the air in the air-chambers to an almost perfect vacuum, and the
immense structure soared skyward with great rapidity.  Lualamba, hearing
the shouts of his people from below, stepped to the gangway to ascertain
the cause; and it was then that, to his inexpressible dismay, he saw the
earth apparently falling from under him, and the upturned faces of his
followers rapidly dwindling until they became unrecognisable.  In the
first extremity of his terror he would have flung himself headlong from
the deck had he not been prevented; failing in this he prostrated
himself, and for some time lay motionless, with his face hidden in his
hands.  At length, however, somewhat reassured by the encouraging
adjurations of the professor and the apparent absence of movement in the
ship, he ventured first of all to uncover his eyes and then to rise
slowly to his feet.  He glanced wildly about him, but could see nothing,
save a thick white mist which completely enveloped the ship (for she had
just plunged into the centre of the cloud), with the sun dimly visible
through it; and a fresh paroxysm of terror seized him, for the horrible
thought at once suggested itself that he had looked his last upon mother
Earth.  The professor, however, speedily reassured him upon this point,
and, leading him to the guard-rail which ran round the deck, bade him
look downward.  Terrified into the most servile obedience, the wretched
chief did as he was bidden, and in a few minutes, the mist growing
thinner and thinner, he once more caught sight of the earth at an
immense distance below, the gigantic ruins above which they were
hovering dwarfed to a mere sprinkling of boulders over the plain; the
trees, the clumps of bush, and the meandering streams stretching away to
the horizon in almost illimitable perspective, and to the eastward the
sea, with just one solitary sail upon it, barely visible above its
gleaming rim.

Ignorant savage though he was, Lualamba was quite intelligent enough to
appreciate the novel beauty of the scene upon which his eyes now rested;
and, forgetting for the moment all his terrors, he leaned upon the rail,
lost in wonder and admiration.  And when, after a minute or two, he
became conscious that the ship was again nearing the earth, his delight
knew no bounds, for he felt that, as the hero of so unique an experience
as he was now passing through, he must henceforth be a person of much
greater consequence among his countrymen than he had ever been before.

Meanwhile the travellers had availed themselves of their recent ascent
to sharply scrutinise the face of the country immediately adjacent to
the ruins, and had at length discovered, on the summit of a distant
hill, an extensive village or settlement, strongly defended by a
circular stockade, which they shrewdly suspected to be the headquarters
of king M'Bongwele.  The single street, which ran through the centre of
the village from end to end, was crowded with people all gazing skyward
at the unwonted apparition of the aerial ship; and, with the aid of
their telescopes, the travellers could see in the central square a small
group of persons (who they conjectured to be the king and his suite)
similarly engaged, surrounded and protected from the rabble by a phalanx
of armed men.

The ship swept rapidly onward until she hovered immediately over the
last-named party (just to impress upon the king a wholesome conviction
of the utter uselessness of his stockade as a protection against such a
foe as the _Flying Fish_), and then, making a majestic sweep, came
gently to earth immediately opposite the principal gate in the stockade.

"Now, go," said the professor, addressing Lualamba, "and inform king
M'Bongwele that we await him on the spot among the ruins where you found
us this morning."

The bewildered chief, scarcely able to realise the fact that he had
actually been brought safely back to _terra firma_, lost no time in
availing himself of the permission given him to depart, and, scrambling
down the ship's side and the rope-ladder, he reached the ground and
bounded off like a startled deer toward the gate, which was hastily
thrown open to admit him, and as hastily closed and barred again the
moment he had passed through.  The _Flying Fish_ then rose once more
into the air and leisurely made her way back to the ruins, passing, _en
route_, the force which had been sent out to capture her, and which was
now making the best of its way back to the village to report the result
of the expedition.

Meanwhile Lualamba made his way rapidly up through the village to the
king's palace (which was, after all, merely the largest hut in the
inclosure), having gained which he besought an immediate audience with
M'Bongwele on a matter of the utmost importance.  The king, who had
already been made acquainted with the circumstance of the chief's
involuntary journey into the upper regions, was, of course, all
curiosity to learn the fullest details of the adventure, and the desired
audience was accordingly at once granted.  Conscious of the fact that,
for the first time in his life, he had failed to execute the mission
intrusted to him, and extremely doubtful as to the reception which would
be accorded to the message of which he was the unwilling bearer,
Lualamba deemed it best on this occasion to tell a plain unvarnished
tale, and, commencing his narrative at the point where he and his
warriors had first come within sight of the huge object of which they
were in quest, he described in full detail all his subsequent
adventures, with the thoughts, feelings, and impressions resulting
therefrom, and wound up falteringly with the message.

His story was received by the king and his suite with ejaculations of
wonder and incredulity, interspersed with many sharp commands from the
monarch to repeat or to explain more fully certain passages; and when
the message was delivered a profound silence reigned for fully an hour.
King M'Bongwele was a despot, accustomed to issue his commands in the
most heedless manner and to have them executed at all costs; but to
_receive_ a command was an entirely novel and decidedly disagreeable
experience, and he was thoroughly puzzled how to act.  His first feeling
was one of speechless indignation at the insolence of these audacious
strangers; his second, a wholesome fear of the consequences of
disobedience.  For if these mysterious visitants had the power of
soaring into the air by a mere wave of the hand, what might it not be
possible for them to do in the event of their being seriously provoked.
Besides, he had already received a practical assurance of his impotency
so far as they were concerned; moreover, he was consumed by curiosity to
see for himself the marvels so graphically described by his lieutenant,
to receive a moiety of those magnificent gifts which the strangers
seemed prepared to lavish broadcast upon all with whom they chanced to
come into contact, and, above all, to satisfy himself with respect to
certain conjectures which had flitted through his brain whilst listening
to the astonishing narrative of Lualamba.  M'Bongwele was an ignorant
savage, it is true, but he was possessed of a dauntless courage, a
persistency of purpose, and an unscrupulous craftiness and ambitiousness
of character which would have won him distinction of a certain
unenviable kind in any community.  Already his brain was teeming with
vague unformed plots of the wildest and most audaciously extravagant
description, the possibility of which he was determined to ascertain for
himself, and the maturing of which he was quite prepared to leave to
time.  He therefore ultimately resolved to obey the summons sent him by
the strangers; but, remembering his kingly dignity, he postponed
obedience as long as he dared, and it was not until four o'clock in the
afternoon that he set out for the ruins, attired in all his native
finery, consisting of a lion-skin mantle and magnificent gold coronet
adorned with flamingo's feathers--the emblems of his regal power--gold
bangles on his arms and ankles, a necklace of lion's teeth and claws
round his neck, and a short petticoat of leopard's skin about his loins.
He was armed with a sheaf of light javelins or assegais, he carried in
his left hand a long narrow shield of rhinoceros hide decorated with
ostrich plumes, and he was mounted on a superb black horse (which he
rode bare-backed and managed with the skill of a finished equestrian).
His followers, numbering about five hundred, were also fully armed and
excellently mounted, they being, indeed, with the exception of a few
court officials, his regiment of household cavalry, the pick of his
native warriors and the very flower of his army.  He was anxious to make
the profoundest possible impression of his power and greatness upon the
mysterious beings he was about to visit; and, indeed, the cavalcade, as
it swept at a hand-gallop out through the wide gateway which formed the
principal opening in the stockade, constituted, with its tossing plumes,
its fluttering mantles, its glancing weapons, and its prancing horses, a
sight to make a soldier's heart bound with appreciative delight.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

KING M'BONGWELE IS TEMPORARILY REDUCED TO SUBMISSION.

In the return of the _Flying Fish_ to her former berth the subject of
the reception to be accorded to king M'Bongwele, in the event of his
obeying their summons, was somewhat anxiously discussed by the
travellers.  They had already seen and heard enough to convince them
that the individual in question was a sovereign of considerable power,
as African kings go, and former experience among savages had taught them
that he would, as likely as not, prove to be a crafty, unscrupulous, and
slippery customer to deal with.  To satisfactorily carry out the object
of their visit to this man's country--namely, the examination and
exploration of the mysterious and very interesting ruins which
surrounded them--it would be absolutely necessary that they should be
able to pass to and fro, freely and unmolested, between the ship and the
various points selected for examination; and, in order to secure this
perfect freedom, it would be necessary not only to conciliate this
powerful ruler and his people, but also to so thoroughly impress him and
them with the mysterious and wonderful attributes of their unbidden
guests that they should, one and all, be absolutely _afraid_ to
interfere with them.  The question was, how could this be most
effectually achieved?  The first part of the programme, namely the
conciliation of sovereign and subjects, appeared simple enough; the
obvious pride and delight with which Lualamba had received his flashy
presents of beads and Manchester finery furnished a key to the
satisfactory solution of this difficulty; but how was the second and
equally important part of the programme to be carried out?  Lualamba, it
was true, had been effectually cowed by the simple expedient of carrying
him a few thousand feet up into the air; but something more than the
mere repetition of this experiment would be necessary to produce the
required impression upon M'Bongwele and the crowd of warriors he would
be certain to bring with him.  The matter was placed in the hands of the
professor for settlement, and he promptly avowed himself to be fully
equal to the task.

"Science, my friends," he remarked, "is constantly revealing wonders
which surprise and astound even the most cultured minds of the civilised
world; how much more capable is it then of overawing the uncultured
savage, however shrewd and clever he may be in those simple matters
which affect his everyday life!  Leave it to me; we have ample
scientific means at our command to quell this man and his followers, and
to reduce them to a state of the most abject and servile subjection."

Von Schalckenberg then retired to make his preparations, which were soon
complete.  When next he appeared he carried upon one arm a glittering
mass of what at first sight appeared to be drapery, but which, on his
unfolding it, proved to be three suits of chain armour (minus helmet and
gauntlets), constructed of very small fine links of aethereum, light and
flexible as silk.

"I think," said he, "it will be unadvisable to make any change in our
outward appearance in preparing to receive this royal savage; any such
change would be certainly noticed, and as certainly regarded as an
indication of the importance we attach to his visit.  Now, our policy is
to treat the whole affair as a matter of no moment whatever, and we will
therefore (if you agree with my views) continue to wear the white
flannel suits in which we received Lualamba this morning.  But I would
recommend that each of you don a suit of this mail under your clothing
(I have already assumed mine), and we shall then be pretty well prepared
for emergencies.  These savages are often exceedingly treacherous
fellows, and it is quite among the possibilities that certain of this
king's followers may have received instructions to test our supposed
invulnerability by a sly stab in the back or something of that kind; it
will be well, therefore, that we should be properly prepared for
anything of the kind.  I had in view some such occasion as the present
when I arranged for the construction of these suits.  There is a helmet
and gauntlets for each; but we shall scarcely need them today, I think,
and it would hardly be politic to wear any _visible_ defensive armour."

The luncheon hour arrived and passed without sign or token of the
presence of a single savage in the neighbourhood, and as the afternoon
waned with still no indication of human vicinity, the travellers--but
for the absolute impregnability of the _Flying Fish_--would have begun
to feel uneasy.  About half-past four o'clock, however, as the quartette
were languidly puffing at their cigars, lolling meanwhile in the most
luxurious of deck-chairs, a huge cloud of yellow dust rising into the
air beyond the ruins announced the approach of the cavalcade, and a
minute or two later king M'Bongwele at the head of his cavalry swept
like a whirlwind into the open space occupied by the great ship, and,
charging in a solid square close up to her, suddenly wheeled right and
left into line, and came to an abrupt halt.  The evolution was very
brilliantly executed, and as Lethbridge lazily scanned the performers
through the thin filmy smoke of his cigar, he could not restrain a low
murmur of admiration, followed by the remark:

"By George! what splendid soldiers those fellows would make with a
couple of months' training!"

"Y-e-s," agreed the baronet, "that was very well done; but I suppose
that particular evolution is the one in which they most excel, and of
course it was done purely for effect.  Ah! the individual now
dismounting is, I suppose, our royal visitor."

The baronet was quite right in his conjecture.  As the party halted,
some ten or a dozen individuals, including Lualamba, flung themselves
from their horses, and, advancing reverentially, grouped themselves
about the royal charger.  Two of them then stepped to the creature's
head and grasped the bridle, whilst two more assisted the king to
dismount.  The horse was then handed over to the care of a warrior, and
the king, closely followed by the members of his suite, advanced to the
foot of the rope-ladder, which had been lowered for their accommodation;
the professor at the same time stepping to the gangway and inviting the
party to ascend.

M'Bongwele looked somewhat doubtfully at the swaying ladder for a moment
or two, and then essayed the ascent; but the oscillation set up by his
movements proved too much for his nerves--or his dignity--and, much
chagrined, he was obliged to desist.  The professor then in compassion
suggested the steadying of the ladder at its foot, when the king,
promptly giving the necessary order to his suite, ascended to the deck,
leaving those who followed him to manage as best they could.

The first glance of the travellers satisfied them that in king
M'Bongwele they had a man of more than ordinary intelligence to deal
with.  The colour of his skin and complexion was a rich deep brown, he
stood nearly six feet high on his naked feet, and, but for his somewhat
excessive corpulence, he would have been a man of magnificent
proportions.  His lips were rather thick, and his nose somewhat
flattened, but not nearly as much so as in the case of the genuine
negro.  His forehead was broad and lofty, though receding, his eyes
keen, restless, and piercing, and there was a crafty, cruel, resolute
look about the lower part of his face which taught his hosts that they
would have to be exceedingly cautious in their dealings with him.  He
was accommodated with a chair between Sir Reginald and the professor,
the former being flanked by Lethbridge (Mildmay, in accordance with
previous arrangements, had ensconced himself in the pilothouse);
Lualamba and the rest of the suite were quietly allowed to squat in a
semicircle before them on the deck.

The king opened the conversation by somewhat abruptly demanding the
reason for the strangers' visit to his dominions; to which the professor
replied by pointing to the ruins, explaining that they were believed to
be the remains of a great city built many ages ago by a very interesting
race of people of whom but little was known, and he and his companions
were anxious to minutely examine and explore what was left, in the hope
of discovering some sculptured or other record bearing upon the origin,
habits, and history of the builders.

A few minutes of profound meditation on the part of the king followed
this announcement, and then he suddenly demanded where the travellers
had come from.  The professor replied by a comprehensive sweep of the
hand skyward.

"But," objected M'Bongwele, "if you are spirits you should know all that
you want to know about these ruins without coming here to investigate.
The spirits know everything."

A low murmur of applause from the king's adherents followed this
enunciation, showing that they evidently considered their monarch to be
getting the better of the strangers, and a smile of gratification
flickered for an instant over M'Bongwele's features.

"Not everything," corrected the professor.  "We know a great many
things, but not everything.  And what we know we have been obliged to
find out by investigation.  We spend the greater part of our existence
in passing from place to place investigating and finding out things."

"Then I have been misinformed, and the spirits are neither so wise nor
so powerful as I thought them to be," retorted the king.

"Perhaps so," quietly remarked the professor.  "Nevertheless we are very
powerful--sufficiently so to destroy you and your whole army in a
moment, should we choose to do so.  Would you like to witness a specimen
or two of our power?"

M'Bongwele glanced somewhat nervously about him for a second or two, and
then with an obvious effort answered:

"Yes."

"I see that some of your followers here are armed with bows," continued
the professor.  "Are they good marksmen?"

"The best in the world," answered the king proudly.

The professor in his turn hesitated an instant; he was about to make a
dangerous experiment.  Then he drew from his pocket a small crimson silk
rosette, and, placing it in M'Bongwele's hand, said:

"I will attach this to any part of my dress you choose to point out;
then order one of your archers to shoot an arrow at it, and observe the
result."

The king took the rosette in his hand, examined it carefully, and passed
it round among his suite for inspection.  On receiving it back he
suddenly wheeled round in his chair, and, reaching over, laid his finger
on Lethbridge's breast exactly over the heart.

"Fasten it _there_," he said with a scornful smile, "and I will shoot at
it myself."

The professor was disconcerted.  The danger of the experiment consisted
in the possibility that the archer, instead of aiming at the rosette,
would select an eye or some part of the head for a mark, in which case
the result would be fatal.  He was quite willing to incur the risk
himself, trusting that the archer's vanity would impel him to aim at the
right spot; but he had never contemplated the turn which affairs had now
taken.

Lethbridge, however, with a languid smile and a shrug of the shoulders,
rose to his feet, and, nonchalantly flicking the ash off the end of his
cigar, waited for the professor to affix the rosette.

A happy inspiration just then occurred to von Schalckenberg.  "It is a
very small mark," he murmured confidentially to M'Bongwele; "I do not
believe you can hit it.  Shall I get something larger?"

The king would not listen to any such proposal; he was evidently anxious
to exhibit his skill; and the professor, reassured, attached the rosette
to Lethbridge's coat in the exact spot indicated, M'Bongwele and his
companions watching the operation with the keenest interest.

The colonel, glancing round for a good background against which to place
himself, noticed a large clump of trees with olive-green foliage growing
at a short distance directly astern of the ship.  Against these his
white-clad figure would stand out in strong relief.  He accordingly
stepped leisurely out to a suitable position on the deck, and, with one
hand in his pocket and his smouldering cigar in the other, patiently
awaited the decisive moment.  M'Bongwele in the meantime snatched a bow
from one of his followers, and, selecting a long straight arrow from the
sheaf, retired to the other end of the deck, a distance of about one
hundred and fifty feet from his living target.  He strung the bow
carefully, adjusted the arrow to the string with the utmost nicety, drew
it to the head, and then paused for a full minute, apparently waiting
for some indication of flinching on Lethbridge's part.  In this,
however, he was disappointed, not the faintest suggestion of uneasiness
could be detected in the colonel's face--indeed, he seemed to be
absorbed in a critical contemplation of the smoke which lazily wreathed
upward from the end of the cigar.  Suddenly the bow twanged loudly, the
arrow whizzed through the air, and, striking fair upon the rosette, fell
in splinters to the deck.  Lethbridge somewhat contemptuously kicked the
fragments aside, unpinned the rosette from the breast of his coat, and
sauntered back to his former seat.  The group of chiefs gathered on the
deck glanced at each other and uttered suppressed ejaculations of
dismay.  As for M'Bongwele, he was thoroughly discomfited; he had been
shrewd enough to suspect in the professor's proposal some preconcerted
arrangement, which he flattered himself he had skilfully baffled;
instead of which his _ruse_ had simply redounded to his own more
complete confusion.

The professor rose and picked up the pierced rosette, which he handed to
the king.

"You are very skilful," he remarked, pointing to the puncture; "I
compliment you."  Then, changing his tone, he continued: "We have
allowed you to do this in order that you may be thoroughly convinced of
the impossibility of injuring us.  Now you shall have a further example
of our power.  Order your warriors to dismount and try their best to
lift this ship from off the ground."

The king turned to Lualamba and gave him the necessary order; whereupon
the chief, descending the ladder to the ground, advanced to the troops,
and, dismounting them, assembled them all round the hull; then, at a
given signal, the entire body exerted themselves to the utmost to lift
the immense fabric from the ground--of course without effect, as her
chambers were full of air.

"Now," said the professor when the savages had pretty well exhausted
themselves, "let all but one man retire."

This was done, Mildmay meanwhile exhausting the chambers until the gauge
showed that the ship weighed only a few pounds.  The professor glanced
carelessly at the pilot-house, caught the signal that all was in
readiness, and said to the king:

"Now order that man to lift the ship on to his shoulders."

M'Bongwele duly repeated the order, without the slightest expectation
that it would be fulfilled; and the man--who would have plunged into a
blazing bonfire if he had been so ordered--advanced, and, to the
unutterable astonishment of himself, the king, and in fact the whole
concourse of natives, raised the gigantic structure to his shoulders and
held it there with scarcely an effort.

"Now, tell him to toss us into the air," commanded von Schalckenberg,
shouting down from the gangway to Lualamba.

And in another second the terrified king and his suite felt a slight
movement, and saw the earth sinking far away beneath them.  This was
altogether too much for the suite, who grovelled on the deck in mortal
fear; and even king M'Bongwele felt his courage rapidly oozing away as
he sat uneasily in his deck-chair convulsively gripping its arms and
glancing anxiously about him.

The ascent was continued to a height of about fifteen thousand feet, at
which altitude the wretched savages were shivering even more with cold
than they had hitherto done with fear.  The ship was then headed
straight for the sea, which she soon reached, and, speeding onward at
the rate of thirty miles an hour, her course was continued, accompanied
by a gradual descent until the land was lost sight of; when a wide sweep
was made, and, at a height of only one hundred feet above the waves, the
return journey was commenced.  This experience proved sufficient, and
more than sufficient, for M'Bongwele; he was completely cowed; and when
he found himself hovering over the illimitable sea, without a sign of
land in any direction, he flung himself upon his knees before the
professor and piteously entreated to be restored to his home and people,
abjectly promising that he and they would be the willing slaves of the
White Spirits for ever; and as for the ruins, the Spirits might do
whatever they chose with them, freely and without let or hindrance.
This was all very well, but von Schalckenberg had not yet fully carried
out his programme; he had still one more item in the entertainment which
he was determined to produce, and which he fully believed would render
M'Bongwele's subjugation not only complete but permanent.

Accordingly, on returning to their starting-place (by which time it was
nearly dark), the demoralised warriors, who had all but given up their
king as lost, were set to work by von Schalckenberg's orders to collect
wood for a gigantic bonfire.  This was soon done, and the fire was
kindled; but, much of the wood being green, an immense cloud of smoke
was raised, with very little flame, which exactly suited the professor's
purpose.  When the fire was fairly alight, the troops were re-formed in
line as close to the ship as possible, and M'Bongwele and his suite were
arranged in position on the deck immediately beneath the pilot-house
walls.  By this time it was perfectly dark, save for the starlight and
the flickering gleam of the bonfire; and the air was stark calm.

Gradually and imperceptibly the dense cloud of smoke which hung
motionless over the smouldering pile became faintly luminous.  The
radiance grew stronger and stronger, and presently an immense circular
disc of light appeared reflected on the slowly-rising cloud of vapour,
in which a host of forms were indistinctly traceable.  Another moment
and a loud ejaculation of astonishment burst from the savage spectators,
for, with another sudden brightening of the luminous disc there appeared
the phantom presentment of M'Bongwele's troops drawn up as they had
appeared a couple of hours before, when the king had first boarded the
_Flying Fish_ So clear and vivid was the representation that it met with
instant recognition, amid loud murmurs of amazement from the beholders;
the king being quite as strongly moved as any of his subjects.

"Do you recognise the vision?" demanded the professor sternly of
M'Bongwele.

"I do, I do.  Those are the spirits of my bravest soldiers," murmured
the king.  "Truly the Spirits of the Winds have wondrous powers."

"You say well," answered von Schalckenberg.  "Now, look again and you
shall see a few of _our_ warriors."

As he spoke the picture became blurred and indistinct, prismatic colours
began to come and go upon the curtain of vapour, and suddenly out
flashed the image of a wide-stretching sun-lit plain, upon which were
drawn up on parade, in illimitable perspective, a countless host of
British troops, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, with bayonets, swords,
and lance-points gleaming in the sun, with colours uncased, guns
limbered up, and all apparently ready and waiting for the order to
march.  So realistic was the picture that even the baronet and
Lethbridge could scarcely repress an exclamation of astonishment, and as
for M'Bongwele and his people, they were perfectly breathless with
surprise.  The picture was allowed to remain clear, brilliant, and
distinct for some ten minutes, then the radiant disc rapidly faded until
it vanished altogether, and nothing remained but the red glimmer of the
smouldering fire.

A heavy sigh issued from M'Bongwele's breast, and he rose to his feet.

"It is enough," he said.  "Let me go home."

He advanced gropingly to the gangway (for it was now very dark), when,
in an instant, every one of the electric lights in the ship flashed out
at their fullest brightness, brilliantly illuminating the deck, and
turning night into day for fully a mile round, and, under the clear
steely radiance thus unexpectedly furnished him, the king slowly made
his way to the ground, mounted his horse in silence, and galloped away
at the head of his followers.  The illumination of the ship was
maintained until the cavalcade was well clear of the ruins, when the
side-ladder was drawn up, the lights extinguished, and M'Bongwele was
left to make the remainder of his way as best he could in the darkness.

"Well," said the professor as the quartette wended their way below to
dinner, "how have I managed?"

"Admirably," answered Sir Reginald and the colonel together.  "Never,
surely," continued the latter, "was African king so completely overawed
in so short a time as this fellow has been to-day."

"We all, and I especially, owe you thanks, colonel, for the sublime
_sang froid_ with which you stood up and allowed yourself to be made a
target of to-day," said von Schalckenberg.  "Believe me, I would never
have made the proposal I did had I suspected that the part of target
would have been so cleverly transferred to someone else.  But the crafty
fellow evidently suspected what you English call `a plant'--a
prearranged plan--and he thought that by adopting the course he did he
would have us at advantage."

"Oh," laughed the colonel scornfully, "that was a mere trifle, less than
nothing.  I saw that the fellow was confident of his skill as a marksman
and anxious to show off, so I felt perfectly easy in my mind.  Had it
been one of our own men, now--" An expressive shrug of the shoulders
finished the sentence.

"Yes," remarked the baronet reflectively, "what a pity it is that they
are not trained to individually select and aim at a particular object.
If they were, no troops in the world could stand up for ten minutes
before them.  But, speaking of troops, professor, what a master-stroke
that was of yours to give the darkies an opportunity of comparing their
own soldiers with ours.  How on earth did you manage it?"

"Oh, easily enough," laughed the professor.  "A magic lantern and a
couple of slides did the whole business.  The throwing of the pictures
upon the smoke-wreath certainly enhanced its effectiveness a good deal,
but it is quite an old trick, which I have often done before with
excellent results.  Everyone who is going much among savages ought to
include a lantern and an assortment of good startling slides in his
outfit if possible."

"But how did you get the first of your two slides?  That was surely a
representation of M'Bongwele's own people."

"Certainly.  And our friend Mildmay very cleverly secured it with a
camera which I set up and prepared for him in the pilot-house.  He only
had to release a spring at the right moment, and the thing was done.  He
developed the picture whilst we were making our little excursion out to
sea and back.  Well, the whole thing was a farce; but I believe it has
effectually secured us from interruption during our researches among the
ruins; and if so, it was worth playing."



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

KING M'BONGWELE TURNS THE TABLES UPON HIS VISITORS.

In reaching his palace that night king M'Bongwele dismissed his
followers with but scant ceremony, and at once retired to rest.  He
passed a very disturbed night of alternate sleeplessness and harassing
fitful dreams, and arose next morning in a particularly bad temper.  He
was anxious, annoyed, and uneasy in the extreme at the unexpected and
unwelcome presence of these extraordinary visitants to his dominions--
these spirits, or men, whichever they happened to be, who had taken such
pains to show him that they despised his power, and were quite prepared
to ride rough-shod over him unless he slavishly conformed to all their
wishes; who had frightened and humiliated him in the presence of his
immediate followers and most powerful chiefs, and entailed upon him a
loss of prestige which it would be difficult if not impossible to
recover.  He was childishly jealous of the slightest interference with
his supreme authority, and he fretted and chafed himself into a state of
fury almost bordering upon madness as he reflected upon the veiled
menaces to himself which had been only too distinctly recognisable in
every manifestation of these strangers' extraordinary power on the
preceding day.  He recognised that their deliberate intention had been
to show him that during their sojourn in his country he must in all
respects conform to their wishes, and model his conduct strictly in
accordance with their ideas of what was right and proper, or take the
consequences.  And what were those consequences likely to be?  Judging
from what he had already seen, his dethronement and utter humiliation
seemed to be among the least severe of future possibilities.  Instead of
remaining the irresponsible autocrat he had hitherto been, he would,
during the sojourn of these strangers in his vicinity, be obliged to
carefully weigh and consider his every word and action, in order that he
might neither say nor do anything which could by any possibility prove
distasteful to them.  And if this state of servile, abject, slavish
submission was to be his condition during the period of their stay--
which might last the Great Fetisch himself only knew how long--his life
would not be worth having, it would simply be a grinding, insupportable
burden to him.

As these unwelcome reflections thronged through his mind he grew so
madly ferocious that he issued orders for the instant execution of
certain white prisoners which had fallen into his hands a few months
before, countermanding the order almost immediately afterwards--and,
happily, in good time--partly because they were women, and he still
hoped, notwithstanding present difficulties and frequent former
failures, to add them to his harem; and partly because he was under the
apprehension that, among their other attributes, his mysterious visitors
might possess that of omniscience, and, getting knowledge of the
execution, object to and call him to account for it.  It was a similar
consideration alone which deterred him from solacing himself by the
impalement of half a dozen or so of his principal ministers, the entire
suite having an exceedingly lively time of it that morning, and being
infinitely thankful when they were at last dismissed with whole skins.

The question which harassed and perplexed M'Bongwele for the remainder
of that day was: could the visit of these extraordinary beings be by any
means shortened or terminated?  And, if so, how?  Or if the visit could
not be cut short, was there any possibility of subjugating the visitors?
This particular African monarch possessed at least one virtue, that of
perseverance under difficulties.  He was not at all the sort of man to
sit down and tamely submit to evils if he thought there was even the
most remote and slender possibility of overcoming them.  He had, on a
previous occasion, encountered certain fair-skinned men so similar in
appearance, and in every other respect, except dress, to these present
troublesome visitors of his that they might well have been taken for
beings of the same race; yet _they_ had proved so thoroughly mortal that
he had had no difficulty whatever in disposing of them.  True, he had
shot an arrow at one of these visitants yesterday, striking him fair
upon the breast, and the arrow, instead of piercing him through and
through, had fallen splintered to pieces at his feet.  Yet this very
extraordinary incident was not, to M'Bongwele, wholly conclusive
evidence as to their invulnerability.  Lualamba had on the previous day
made certain suggestive remarks tending to strengthen his monarch's
belief that if these persons could by any means be separated from the
huge structure which seemed to be their home they might possibly prove
to be very ordinary mortals after all.  He was inclined to believe that
a great deal, if not the whole, of their power was centred in the
gigantic fabric which they called a ship.  And, if that should indeed
prove to be the case, all that they had done on the previous day could
be done by anyone into whose hands the ship might happen to fall.  It
could be done by _him_.  As this reflection flashed across his brain he
pictured to himself the immense accession of power and prestige which
would come to him with the possession of that wonderful structure; of
the conquests it would enable him to make, and of the boundless
extension of his dominions which it would enable him to secure; and his
eyes flashed and his bosom heaved with unsuppressed excitement as he
inwardly vowed that he would achieve its possession or die in the
attempt.  All the conditions of his life, he angrily told himself, had
been violently and permanently disarranged by the incidents of the
previous day; he had been publicly threatened; publicly terrified into a
cowardly and disgraceful state of submission; and it was quite
impossible that he could permanently continue as he then was.  He must
fully recover all his lost prestige and add immeasurably to it, or must
be content to see some ambitious chief rise up and wrest the kingdom
from him.  These presumptuous strangers had forced him into enmity
against them, and they must take the consequences.

Lualamba was one of M'Bongwele's most trusted chiefs, and shortly before
sunset he and the head witch-doctor were summoned to a special
conference with the king.

Meanwhile the travellers, having enjoyed a most excellent night's rest,
rose betimes in the morning and prepared for a thorough systematic
investigation of the ruins.  They bathed and breakfasted in due course,
and then, armed to the teeth, set out upon a tour of general inspection,
the professor carrying his camera, and Sir Reginald his sketch-block and
colour-box, whilst Mildmay and the colonel, provided with a box-sextant
and a light measuring chain, set themselves the task of making a rough
survey of the ruins and a portion of the surrounding country.  The tour
of the ruins, the taking of an occasional sketch or photograph, and the
making of the survey, kept the party fully occupied for the whole of the
first day; and they returned to the ship just before sunset, tired and
hungry, but thoroughly satisfied with their day's work, and fully
convinced that their success in penetrating to this interesting spot
would alone more than repay them for all the trouble and expense
connected with the outfit of the expedition.  One important fact at
least had been clearly ascertained by them in the course of the day,
which was, that the ruins were extremely ancient, their antiquity being
demonstrated by the circumstance that during successive ages the soil
had gradually accumulated about the ruins until they were nearly half
buried.  The most interesting discovery made by them during the day was
that of an enormous block of ruins, which, from its extent and the
imposing character of its architecture, they felt convinced must have
been a temple or other public building, and it was resolved that their
investigations should commence with it.  It was situated about a mile
distant from the spot occupied by the _Flying Fish_, and their first
intention had been to move the ship somewhat nearer; but an inspection
of the intervening ground had shown it to be so encumbered with ruins
that it was soon apparent that she must be left where she was.

A very large amount of excavation--much more than they could possibly
manage alone--would be necessary before the lower portion of the walls
and the pavement of the building could be laid bare, and they decided to
go over to M'Bongwele's village on the following morning and arrange
with him if possible for the hire of some fifty or a hundred men.  This,
however, proved to be unnecessary, for whilst they were at breakfast
next day the sound of a horn was heard without, and, going on deck, they
discovered Lualamba below in charge of a party of some twenty women
bearing a present of milk (in closely woven grass baskets), eggs, fowls,
and fruit, and a message from the king asking whether his visitors
required assistance of any kind in the pursuit of their investigations.

"Capital!" exclaimed the baronet when von Schalckenberg had translated
the message.  "This is as it should be.  Lower the ladder, professor,
and ask Lualamba to come on deck.  We must send back a present to the
king in return for that which he has sent us; and we can at the same
time forward a message explaining our wants."

Lualamba quickly made his appearance on deck, where, after receiving a
further small present for himself and a cast-off soldier's coat,
battered cocked-hat, an old pair of uniform trousers, the seams of which
were trimmed with tarnished gold braid, and half a dozen strings of
beads, as a present for the king, the wants of the travellers were
explained to him.  The chief shook his head; he feared it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to meet the wishes of the illustrious
strangers in the particular manner spoken of.  The male inhabitants of
the village were all warriors, to whom work of any description would be
an unspeakable degradation.  But he would see what could be done.  If
women, now, would serve the strangers' purpose as well as men, the thing
could easily be arranged.

Had the travellers been less experienced than they were this suggestion
as to the employment of women would have come upon them as a surprise;
but they were well aware that among many savage races labour is looked
upon as degrading, and therefore imposed solely upon the women; so they
merely thanked Lualamba for his promise, and intimated that women would
serve them equally as well as men.  Upon which Lualamba withdrew,
promising that a gang of at least fifty should be at the ruined temple--
or whatever it was--"before the sun reached the top of the sky;" in
other words, before noon.  This promise was faithfully fulfilled, for at
eleven o'clock the explorers saw the gang of labourers come filing in
among the ruins, armed with rude wooden mattocks and spades, and
provided with large baskets in which to convey away the soil as it was
dug out.  They were as unprepossessing a lot of specimens of female
humanity as could well be imagined.  Naked, save for a filthy ragged
skin petticoat round their waists and reaching to the knee, their faces
wore, without exception, an expression of sullen stupidity, and they
looked as though they had never experienced a joyous moment in their
lives; but they were active and muscular, and soon showed that they
thoroughly understood how to use their clumsy tools to the best
advantage.  They were led by and worked under the directorship of a
lean, shrunken, withered old grey-haired hag of superlative ugliness,
who did no work herself, but went constantly back and forth along the
line of workers, bearing in her hand a long thin pliant rattan, which
she did not hesitate to smartly apply to the shoulders of those who
seemed to her to be doing less than their fair share of the work in
hand.  This bit of petty cruelty was, however, as a matter of course,
promptly stopped by the professor, who thereby won for himself a look of
withering scorn from the hag aforesaid, and glances of stupid wonder--in
which in some cases could be also detected faint traces of an expression
of gratitude--from the unfortunate sisterhood who laboured under her.

The amount of work performed was, as might naturally be expected,
nothing approaching to that which would have been accomplished in the
same time by the same number of white labourers; indeed, a gang of half
a dozen good honest hard-working English navvies would have accomplished
fully as much per diem as the fifty women who laboured among the ruins.
But the explorers were quite satisfied; they were in no particular
hurry; the climate was delightful; M'Bongwele was wonderfully civil,
sending large supplies of provisions, fruit, and milk to the ship daily,
accompanied by the most solicitous inquiries through Lualamba as to
whether all things were going well with his visitors.  There was no
attempt whatever, so far as they could discover, to pry into their
doings, not a single warrior, save Lualamba, having been seen by them
since the day of the king's visit, and everything seemed to be
favourable to a thorough and leisurely execution of their purpose.

On the fourth day from the commencement of the excavation the explorers
were gratified by the uncovering of a yard or two of what appeared to be
a magnificent tesselated pavement of white and variegated marble; and by
the end of a fortnight fully half of its supposed area was exposed,
showing it to be of an entirely novel and exquisitely graceful design,
the intricate outline of the pattern being emphasised by the insertion
of plates of gold about a quarter of an inch wide between the tesserae.
The pavement was smooth, level, and in perfect preservation, and the
explorers were in the very highest of spirits at their exceptional good
luck.

At the outset of the work the four friends had been in the habit of
returning every day to the ship for luncheon, but as time passed on they
felt that to do this in the very hottest part of the day was a wholly
unnecessary waste of energy, and they accordingly transferred from the
ship to the scene of their operations a spacious umbrella-tent (that is
to say, a tent with a top but no sides), together with a small table and
four chairs.  And under the shadow of this tent they were wont to
partake of the mid-day meal (usually a cold collation), which they
generally finished off with a cup of chocolate or coffee and a cigar,
the potables being prepared by a particular one of the women labourers,
who speedily developed quite a special aptitude for the task, and who at
length fell into the habit of regularly bringing with her, every day,
the milk needed for the purpose.  The tent being pitched on a spot which
commanded a full view of the operations in progress, the quartette
gradually acquired the habit of lingering somewhat over their luncheon,
and especially over the final coffee and cigar, the inevitable result of
which was that, for the next hour or two, they experienced a feeling of
delicious languor and drowsiness, and an almost unconquerable
disinclination to exchange the grateful shade of the tent for the
scorching heat of the afternoon sun.  At first they struggled resolutely
and manfully against this overpowering temptation to idleness; but
finding, or fancying, that they could supervise the work as efficiently
from the tent as they could at a yard or two from its shelter, they
gradually gave up the struggle, yielding day after day more completely
to the seductive feeling of lassitude which seemed to have laid hold
upon them.

Finally, one hot afternoon, overcome by the drowsy influence of the warm
perfumed air which played about their languid bodies, they all fell
asleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unknown to and wholly unsuspected by them, the old crone who was in
charge of the gang of female labourers had, for some days past, been
keeping a sharply watchful eye upon the investigators, and upon the day
in question she had been, if possible, more sharply watchful than ever.
So interested in them did she at last become that, turning her back upon
the women and leaving them to work or not as they saw fit, she advanced
until she entered the shadow of the tent, where she paused, eagerly
scanning the features of the slumberers.  For some ten minutes or so she
stood motionless as a statue, her sunken glittering eyes turning from
one placid face to the other; then she stepped to the baronet's side
and, seizing him by the shoulder, shook him sharply.  The sleeper might
have been dead for all the consciousness which he exhibited at her rude
touch.  Another and more violent shake proved equally unproductive of
results.  Then she passed on to the colonel, to Mildmay, and to the
professor, experimenting in like manner with each.  If she wished to
arouse them, her efforts were useless; they were, one and all, locked
fast in the embrace of sleep--profound, unnatural, death-like sleep.  A
scornful laugh grated harshly from her lips, and, wheeling sharply upon
her heel, she rejoined the gang of excavators, exclaiming:

"Cease this useless labour; there is no further need of it.  The witch-
potion has done its work, and you may all return to the village.  I go
to summon the warriors."

The women, without further ado, gathered up their tools and baskets,
and, breaking into a low monotonous song, to which their feet kept time,
took the trail leading to the village, and soon disappeared among the
scattered ruins and the bush which clustered thickly about them.

Ten minutes later a band of dusky warriors, fully armed and numbering
about a hundred, made their appearance, and, led by Lualamba, advanced
to the tent, which they surrounded.  Four grass hammocks, each of which
was stretched between two long bamboo poles, were then brought forward,
and, by the directions of the chief, the unconscious white men were
carefully lifted from their seats and deposited at full length in them.
The tent was then struck, and, with its simple furniture, taken in
charge by certain members of the band told off for the purpose, when
each of the hammocks, with its sleeping burden, was carefully raised
from the ground and shouldered by four savages, and, the remainder of
the warriors forming round them as an escort, the band took the trail to
the village, and marched rapidly away.

On reaching their destination the prisoners (for such they evidently
were) were carried to a new hut, which had all the appearance of having
been specially constructed for them, and, once inside, the poles of the
hammocks were carefully laid in the forked ends of upright posts, firmly
fixed in the ground, the whole forming a sufficiently comfortable bed.
Four young women then entered the building, and, taking their places,
one at the head of each sleeper, proceeded, with the aid of large
feather fans, to protect their helpless charges from the attacks of the
mosquitoes and other insect torments with which the village swarmed;
when the hammock-bearers filed out, and the white men were left to sleep
off, undisturbed, the effects of the potent drug which had been artfully
mingled with the milk with which their coffee had that day been
prepared.

The hut in which our four friends were thus left had been erected in a
spacious palisaded quadrangle which surrounded the king's palace, so
that M'Bongwele might, as it were, always have them under his own eye;
and the fact that, having got them into his power, the king was
determined, if possible, to keep them there, was made manifest by the
presence of a strong cordon of guards, who, on the passage of the
prisoners within the portal, immediately ranged themselves round the hut
outside.  The hut was only some twelve feet square, and entirely open at
one end, the open end being, however, protected from the sun by a
continuation of the roof in the form of a broad verandah supported at
the eaves upon two stout verandah-posts; and round this diminutive
structure were ranged twenty picked men, facing inward, fully armed with
bow, spear, and shield; it was pretty evident, therefore, that, unless
the prisoners had the power to render themselves invisible, or of
paralysing their guards, there was little probability of their effecting
their escape.

The posting of the guard having been effected to Lualamba's
satisfaction, he entered the palace to make his report to the king, who
was anxiously expecting him.  M'Bongwele listened attentively to all the
details of the capture, and, upon its completion, rose and, accompanied
by the chief, made his way to the hut, which he cautiously entered,
placing himself at the foot of each hammock in succession, and long and
anxiously regarding the countenances of the sleepers.  He had been
successful in his bold enterprise beyond his most sanguine hopes; but it
was evident that even in the very moment of his triumph he was anxious
and disturbed in his mind.  He trembled at the audacity which had led
him to pit himself against these extraordinary beings, and the very ease
with which he had accomplished his purpose frightened him.  Had these
men--if men they were--been encountered and overcome awake, and in the
full possession of their senses, he would have been happy, for he would
then have felt that his own power was superior to theirs.  But they had
been surprised whilst under the influence of a subtle and potent drug
prepared by the chief witch-doctor; and when they awoke and discovered
what had been done to them, what might not the consequence be?  But what
was done was done; he had now gone too far to retreat; besides which,
his ambition overmastered his fears, and he determined to go on and risk
the consequences.

Having obtained possession of the persons of these formidable beings,
obviously the next thing would be to secure that wonderful thing which
they called a "ship;" and this M'Bongwele determined to do at once: who
knew but that its possession might give him a much-needed and decisive
power over its former owners?  He accordingly retired from the prison
hut, and gave orders for the immediate assembling of all his available
cavalry; at the head of which he soon dashed off in the direction of the
ruins, leaving Lualamba in charge of the guard and of the prisoners, a
position of responsibility which that chief by no means coveted, and
which he accepted with much inward perturbation.

Proceeding at a gallop, the impatient M'Bongwele and his troopers soon
reached the _Flying Fish_, which they immediately surrounded.  The king
then dismounting, and summoning some fifty of his most famous braves to
follow him, cautiously approached the ship, with the purpose of boarding
her.  But the rope-ladder, by means of which he had on a former occasion
accomplished this feat, was no longer there; and, as he glanced upward
at the gleaming cylindrical sides of the towering structure, it began to
dawn upon him that the task he had undertaken was, after all, not
without its difficulties.  Presently, however, a brilliant idea occurred
to him, and, selecting a dozen men, he gave them certain orders which
sent them scurrying off at a gallop.  Half an hour later they returned,
dragging behind them two long stout bamboos and a considerable quantity
of tough pliant "monkey-rope" or creeper.  With these materials the men,
under M'Bongwele's instructions, proceeded to construct a ladder, which,
when completed, they reared against the side of the ship; and by this
means the king and his fifty chosen warriors ascended and triumphantly
reached the deck.

M'Bongwele now regarded himself as completely successful; he had gained
possession of the wonderful structure; and all that remained was to make
use of it in a similar manner to that of its former owners.  He
accordingly advanced pompously to the gangway, and ordered his troopers
to first remove the ladder from the ship's side, and then return to the
village with all speed, adding exultantly that he and those with him on
the "flying horse's back" would be there long before them.

Resolved to give the cavalcade a good start, he watched it disappear in
a cloud of dust among the ruins, and then, assuming his most commanding
attitude and manner, raised his right hand aloft and exclaimed:

"We will now return through the air to the village--keeping as close to
the ground as possible," he added with some trepidation as he nervously
grasped the guard rail in anticipation of the expected movement.

The ship, however, remained motionless.  Something was evidently wrong,
but what it might be he could not imagine; surely he had not forgotten
or misunderstood the formula as stated to him by Lualamba?  He now most
heartily wished that he had brought that trusty chief with him, and so
provided against all possibility of error; however, the omission could
not be helped, and he would try again, adopting a somewhat different
form of words.  This time he stamped rather impatiently on the deck,
exclaiming:

"Take us back to the village, good flying horse, but gently, and not
very far above the ground."

Still no movement.  The king began to look puzzled, and to feel as vexed
as he dared, with the consciousness weighing heavily upon him that he
was playing with frightfully keen edged tools.  He did not know what to
make of this persistent immobility; it was uncanny, sinister,
portentous, almost appalling.  He would try again.  He _did_ try again,
not once but nearly a dozen times, varying the form of words, more or
less, every time; and, of course, with the same ill success.  At length,
in chagrin and disgust, he gave up the attempt to move the ship, and
turned his attention to an examination of her interior.  He advanced to
the pilot-house, complacently reflecting that here, at least, he could
not possibly be beaten; he had only to walk up to the door and enter.
But here, again, surprise and confusion awaited him; for, after _twice_
making the circuit of the building, he was unable to find a door; there
was no perceptible entrance anywhere excepting the circular windows,
which, however, were all open.  Summoning his followers to his
assistance, he made them give him a "back;" and, scrambling up on their
shoulders, he at length contrived to raise himself to the level of these
openings and to look in.  He saw a great many levers, and knobs, and
buttons, and short lengths of insulated wire; in fact, he got a glimpse
of pretty nearly all the apparatus contained in the pilothouse; but that
did not help him in the least, for he had not the most remote idea of
what all these things were for; and when he essayed an entrance by one
of the windows he was again foiled; it was much too small.  At length,
after a great deal of ineffectual wriggling and struggling--which
occasioned serious inconvenience and anxiety to the human supports who
were with the utmost difficulty maintaining a state of very unstable
equilibrium beneath his feet--his patience completely failed him, and,
in a fit of childish anger and spite, he sent a series of truly blood-
curdling yells echoing into the interior of the pilot-house.  These
cries were of course distinctly heard by George and the _chef_, but
(acting upon a concise code of instructions furnished to them when they
were first engaged for the voyage, and which provided for almost every
conceivable emergency), neither of these individuals condescended to
take any notice of them.  Having thus given vent to a portion of his
spleen, king M'Bongwele, paying but scanty attention to the comfort or
dignity of his supporters, scrambled down from his elevated position to
the deck, and sat down to reflect upon the next steps to be taken.  He
would gladly now have left the ship and made the best of his way back to
the village, even though the journey would have had to be performed on
foot; but the ladder had, by his own command, been removed, and his
retreat was thus effectually cut off, a drop of about forty feet from
the bottom of the metal accommodation ladder to the ground being a
something not to be thought of.



CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE HISTORY OF CERTAIN DISTRESSED DAMSELS.

Meanwhile Seketulo, the chief in command of king M'Bongwele's household
cavalry, returned to the village in due course, and lost no time in
dismissing his men, chuckling to himself as he reflected that, after
all, he had beaten his monarch in the race homeward.

Time passed on; the sun set; the evanescent twilight faded out of the
sky; the stars twinkled forth in all the mellow radiance characteristic
of the tropics; and still the adventurous M'Bongwele and his wondrous
prize came not.  Hour after hour lagged slowly away; and at length the
expectant villagers, who had poured into the open air to witness the
triumphant arrival of the king, returned to their huts--their transient
enthusiasm overcome by their habitual apathy and indolence--and
surrendered themselves willingly enough to the blandishments of sleep.
All, with the exception, that is to say, of the guard detailed to watch
over the prisoners, the anxious Lualamba, and Seketulo.  These were all
wakeful enough, the latter perhaps even more so than any of the others.
For, as the night waxed and the great full moon rolled slowly upward
into the sky, the powerful chief, who had won for himself the envied
position of commander of the king's cavalry (a position equivalent to
that of commander-in-chief of the whole army), felt the hope growing
within him that the foolhardy king and those with him had been carried
off to the nether regions for a permanency by the wondrous Thing of
which they had so audaciously sought to secure the possession.  And in
that case (M'Bongwele being without sons, and having, in order to avoid
possible future complications, carefully slaughtered all his brothers
and other relations on his accession to the throne) there would be a
vacancy in that particular country for a king, which vacancy Seketulo
believed himself powerful enough to secure and fill.

Giving free rein to these ambitious ideas and aspirations, the chief
paced thoughtfully to and fro in a retired corner of the village until
about ten o'clock that night, when his impatience could no longer be
curbed, and he felt that he _must_ sally forth to ascertain, if
possible, the fate of M'Bongwele and his party.  Accordingly, mounting
his horse, he took his way out of the village, passing through the
principal gateway, and heading for the ruins at a gallop.  He was
greatly disconcerted, on reaching his destination, to discover that the
_Flying Fish_ still peacefully reposed in her usual berth; and his
disgust was supreme when he further noticed, crouched on her lofty deck,
a disconsolate-looking group, which his fears only too truly assured him
must be the king and his companions.  His first impulse was to retire
and leave them to their merited fate; but the unwelcome reflection
suggesting itself to him that they might possibly be discovered and
rescued in the morning, he altered his purpose, and, making a virtue of
what was almost a necessity, advanced with the intention of proffering a
respectful inquiry as to whether any unfortunate accident had delayed
the royal return.  He was, however, forestalled by the king and his
party, who, the instant they saw him, hailed his appearance with joyous
shouts and an almost piteous entreaty to him to replace the ladder.
This he, still making a virtue of necessity, at once attempted to do;
but the clumsy construction proved too much for his strength.  A happy
idea, however, now flashed through the mind of one of the party; and,
unstringing their bows, they joined the strings together into one
continuous line, which, luckily for them, reached the ground; and
Seketulo bending the lower end on to the ladder, the latter was soon, by
the exertions of all hands, reared into position.  The party, thoroughly
crestfallen, now lost no time in making their way to the ground, when
M'Bongwele at once requisitioned Seketulo's horse, and galloped off
homeward at top speed, the chief and the rest of the party being left to
plod back to the village at their leisure and as best they could.

Notwithstanding this most dismal failure, M'Bongwele still entertained
hopes of being able to possess himself of the coveted ship; and early
next morning every available man and woman was marched to the scene of
the preceding day's discomfiture to attempt the task of _carrying the
Flying Fish to the village_!  This attempt, it is scarcely necessary to
say, also resulted in complete failure, and with this failure king
M'Bongwele was at last compelled to recognise himself as beaten.  It
became clear to him that the mysterious beings whose persons he had so
rashly seized possessed certain peculiar and wonderful powers; and the
only course now open to him seemed to be to make the best terms he could
with them for their co-operation in the furtherance of his schemes.  And
he felt heartily glad--pluming himself at the same time upon his
prudence--that he had not taken advantage of their seemingly helpless
condition, when brought to the village, to attempt the putting of a
period to their existence.

Meanwhile, Seketulo, though greatly chagrined at the turn of affairs, by
no means abandoned hope.  He felt that though disappointment had for
once overtaken him, it by no means followed that such would always be
the case; and if his ambitious dreams could not be realised in one way,
they still might be in another.  The king, unfortunately, had not been
carried off to perdition; but, figuratively speaking, that seemed to be
his ultimate and speedy destination.  For, had he not pitted his own
power against that of the mysterious strangers, and lost the game?  He
had inflicted a most grievous outrage upon them, and had ineffectually
attempted to seize their wonderful ship; yet not a particle of gain or
advantage of any description had been secured, and the wrath of these
strangers had yet to be faced; the penalty of his audacious deeds had
yet to be paid.  Did not all this point to M'Bongwele's speedy downfall?
And if such a state of things should happily be in the near future,
would it not be worth his (Seketulo's) while to approach the strangers
in a friendly spirit and (after cautiously feeling his way) with offers
of assistance?  He decided that it undoubtedly would, and that he would
forthwith adopt that line of policy, cautiously, yet without losing a
single favourable opportunity.

So far as M'Bongwele was concerned, he found himself in a greater strait
than ever.  He had not only failed completely in his ambitious schemes,
but he had also lost prestige with his own people and had made enemies
of the strangers.  His situation was distinctly worse than if he had
done nothing at all; and how to make his way out of the imbroglio he
knew not, nor could any of his ministers advise anything.  He now
fervently wished he had adopted other and more friendly measures with
his visitors; but it was too late; he fully recognised that, with the
odium of failure fresh upon him, any attempt at conciliation would be
utterly hopeless; the only course still open to him appearing to be that
of "masterly inactivity."  This would, at all events, leave time for
events to shape themselves, and afford him an opportunity of regulating
his conduct in accordance therewith; and this course he accordingly
determined to pursue; at the same time issuing the most imperative
orders that the prisoners were to be treated with the utmost courtesy
and consideration consistent with their safe-keeping.

In accordance with these orders, the prisoners found that, after the
second day of their seizure, they had very little of which to complain
beyond the actual loss of their liberty.  They were abundantly supplied
with provisions of all kinds within the resources of the village; the
four young women originally detailed to watch over them during their
drugged slumber were permanently appointed to attend upon them, do their
cooking, keep their hut clean, and so on; and they were allowed to take
unrestricted exercise within the bounds of the compound.  Their
attendants and guards were allowed to answer any questions except such
as related to the king's recent attempt to possess himself of their
property; and hints were freely offered to the effect that M'Bongwele
was most anxious to secure their friendship, and would gladly afford
them an audience whenever they might desire it.  But they had no
intention whatever of seeking an audience with the king; they had a very
shrewd suspicion of what had actually taken place; and having by this
time formed a tolerably accurate estimate of the royal character, they
felt convinced that their only chance of advantageously dealing with
M'Bongwele lay in forcing upon _him_ the character of a suitor to
_them_.

Thus matters stood for nearly a fortnight from the date of their
seizure--Seketulo doing his best to effectually ingratiate himself in
the strangers' favour before venturing to tender his proposed offer of
assistance; and M'Bongwele waiting with daily growing impatience for
overtures from his prisoners--when an event occurred which, simple
though it seemed at the moment, was destined to have an important
bearing on the fortunes of certain other white prisoners then in the
king's power.

It happened thus.  The quartette were sitting under the verandah of
their hut one morning, whining away the very last remains of their
carefully hoarded stock of tobacco, when a soft thud, followed by a low
startled cry of pain and terror from one of their female attendants
caused them to glance hastily round.  The sight which then met their
eyes was startling enough to make them spring instantly to their feet.
A snake fully seven feet long, and of the most deadly venomous kind
(which had evidently just dropped out of the thatch of the hut), had
flung its coils round the bare leg of one of the women, and, before help
could be rendered, had struck its fangs deep into the flesh.  The cruel
heart-shaped head, with its wicked eyes glowing like a couple of
carbuncles, was already drawn back to repeat the stroke when Lethbridge
sprang forward, and, seizing a small pliant rattan which happened to be
handy at the moment, dealt the reptile a swift downward cut across the
body, dividing the creature almost in two; following up the blow by a
rapid dart of his hand, grasping the reptile by the neck and tearing the
quivering coils away from the wounded limb.  Another second, and the
head was being fiercely ground into the dust under the thick solid
leather of his boot-heel, the wounded body twisting and writhing in the
most horrible contortions meanwhile.

Two out of Lethbridge's three companions stood helplessly aghast whilst
this tragedy was in progress; but the professor, ever alert in the
interests of science, promptly compelled the wounded girl to lie down,
and instantly applied his lips to the wound made by the poisonous fangs
of the snake, sucking vigorously until he had induced as copious a flow
of blood as could reasonably be expected from the two tiny punctures.
Then, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, he drew forth a small stick of
lunar caustic (with which he had some time previously provided himself
in anticipation of possible snake-bites) and effectually cauterised the
wound.  The result of which prompt treatment was that the girl, after
enduring some three hours' slight suffering and inconvenience from the
pain and subsequent swelling of the wound, recovered, and in a day or
two was as well again as ever.

This incident was, as might be expected, much talked about in the
village, and it very soon reached M'Bongwele's ears.  That monarch
happened, just then, to be plunged into a state of serious domestic
affliction; and, inspired by the above occurrence with a brilliant idea,
he, after much painful cogitation, resolved to seek the aid of his
prisoners.  Briefly stated, the difficulty was this.  His youngest and
favourite wife had just added another to his already too numerous family
of daughters, thus disgusting and seriously disappointing the king, who
had confidently looked forward to being this time blessed with a son.
This was by no means the first disappointment of the kind that the
monarch had been called upon to endure; and it had been his wont, on
such occasions, to banish the offending wife from his presence,
replacing her with a new one.  He proposed to follow the same rule upon
the present occasion; and the only difficulty which lay in his way
consisted in suitably filling up the vacancy.  There were, of course,
hundreds of sable damsels within the limits of his dominions who would
gladly have accepted the responsibilities of the position, but that
would no longer suit king M'Bongwele; the women of his own race had, one
and all, so far as he had tried them, failed disgracefully in their duty
of providing him with an heir, and he was now determined to try
elsewhere.  He happened to have in his possession, as prisoners, four
white women, one of whom was somewhat elderly, whilst the remaining
three were young, and, though by no means sufficiently _embonpoint_ to
be strictly handsome, from an African savage's point of view, still
attractive enough to justify his choice of either of them as a wife.
The difficulty with these women was that they were unfortunately all
insane--a circumstance which (in accordance with one of the many
superstitious beliefs of the natives, and quite apart from the equally
important objection of consequent unsuitability) effectually precluded
any resort to threats or compulsion for enabling the king to carry out
his plans.  And it was for the purpose of securing these unfortunate
creatures' restoration to reason that M'Bongwele now resolved to invoke
the potent aid of his new prisoners.  When making up his mind to this
course he was at first greatly puzzled as to how he should approach the
individuals he had so basely betrayed, and how explain and excuse his
conduct; but at last the happy idea suggested itself of ignoring his
ill-behaviour altogether; and acting upon this, and without giving
himself time for further consideration, he hurried off to the hut and
presented himself before his prisoners.

Seating himself jauntily upon one of the bedsteads, he opened the
negotiations by explaining that he had come to express his admiration
of, and his thanks for, the wonderful manner in which the woman had been
saved from the deadly effects of the snake-bite; and then, without
affording an opportunity for interruption, he went on to state, in full
detail, his further business.

The indignation excited in the breasts of his listeners by the cool
impudence of the king soon subsided under the influence of the
interesting news that four white women were captives in the village; and
when M'Bongwele closed his explanation and proffered his request, the
professor, instead of loading his captor with reproaches, followed the
latter's example of ignoring all cause for unpleasantness, and simply
stated that no promise of any kind could be made until the four friends
had been afforded an interview with the afflicted women.  To this
proposition the king eagerly assented, overjoyed at so unexpected a
measure of success, indeed he volunteered to personally conduct the
quartette into the presence of his female prisoners; but this was
promptly negatived, the professor declaring that if he and his friends
went to see the women at all they must go entirely unattended, and at
such time as might be most convenient to themselves.  It would have
suited M'Bongwele very much better to have been present at this
interview, for he was suspicious to a really absurd degree; but, finding
the white men firm upon this point, and, apparently, wholly indifferent
in the matter, and being also unable to discover any cause for suspicion
in their conduct, he at length yielded his assent and retired, giving
the necessary instructions to the guard as he passed out of the hut.

The next morning, about eleven o'clock, having previously talked this
curious matter carefully over together, they paid their promised visit;
the women's prison (to which they were carefully escorted by their
entire guard) being situated close to the principal opening in the
palisading which surrounded the village; the same guard being apparently
made to serve for both the prison and the gateway.  The building was an
almost exact facsimile of their own place of confinement, both in shape
and dimensions; but at the very threshold the visitors encountered
evidences of female delicacy and refinement in the shape of finely woven
grass curtains or _portieres_ across the otherwise unclosed entrance,
and these trifling elegances were multiplied a hundred-fold in the
interior, converting the little building into a veritable miniature
palace in comparison with their own unadorned domicile.

But these little interior adornments did not attract the visitors'
notice until later on; their whole attention was at once claimed, upon
their entrance, by the occupants of the building, or at least by the
fairer portion of them.  There were eight altogether--four white and
four black, the ebony damsels evidently filling the position of
attendants.  Of the white women three were young--that is to say, they
apparently ranged between nineteen and twenty-five years of age--whilst
the fourth seemed to be somewhere between forty and fifty.  This lady
was of medium height, with a figure slightly inclined toward stoutness,
brown hair with just a single streak of silver discernible here and
there amongst it, a complexion still in fairly good preservation, a pair
of keen but kindly grey eyes, an excellent set of teeth, shapely hands
and feet, and a pleasant smile which at once prepossessed the beholder
in its possessor's favour.  Of the three younger women, two, aged
respectively twenty-one and nineteen, were sisters; whilst the third,
aged twenty-five, was their cousin, the elderly lady being aunt to all
three.

On entering the hut, in response to the cry of "Come in" which followed
their knock on the framework of the portal, the visitors at once found
themselves face to face with the four ladies, who had risen to their
feet to meet them; the sable attendants crouching at the rear end of the
apartment with a grin of sympathetic curiosity overspreading their
shining visages.

"You are most welcome, gentlemen," said the elderly lady, advancing and
offering her hand to each of her visitors in succession.  "We have been
expecting you.  Allow me to perform the ceremony of introduction.  I am
Mrs Scott, widow of Brigadier-general Scott of her majesty's forces in
India.  This lady is Miss Sabine, my niece and the only daughter of
Major-general Sabine; and these are respectively Miss Rose and Miss
Lucilla Lumsden, the daughters of an Indian judge."

The gentlemen bowed low as each name was mentioned, and, upon Mrs Scott
making a somewhat significant pause, the baronet took up his parable,
remarking:

"We are greatly honoured and delighted, ladies, at thus unexpectedly
making your acquaintance in this out-of-the-way spot, and we sincerely
hope that the acquaintanceship will redound to our mutual advantage.  I
am Sir Reginald Elphinstone.  This gentleman is Colonel Lethbridge; this
is Lieutenant Mildmay, of her majesty's navy; and, last but by no means
least, this gentleman is Professor von Schalckenberg, an eminent German
scientist, a most delightful companion, and a man clever enough, I
firmly believe, to help us all out of our present difficulties."

A general shaking of hands ensued; and then Mrs Scott laughingly
invited the gentlemen to seat themselves on the four bamboo pallets
which occupied opposite sides of the apartment, apologising at the same
time for the lack of suitable sitting accommodation.

"And now," said Mrs Scott laughingly, "to which of you gentlemen are we
to look for the cure of our madness?"

"It is expected, I believe," said Sir Reginald, "that we shall each aid,
to the best of our ability, in the good work.  But," he continued in a
lower and more cautious tone of voice, "is it not rather imprudent of
you to behave in so very sane a manner before these women?"

"Oh," said Mrs Scott, "they are all right.  They are perfectly
trustworthy--indeed, they are actively aiding and abetting us in the
exceedingly disagreeable but necessary deception we are practising upon
king M'Bongwele.  The wretch!" she continued, starting indignantly to
her feet.  "Would you believe it?  He actually has the audacity and
impudence to--to--to--"

"To aspire to a matrimonial alliance with one, if not all, of you.  Yes,
I am aware of his ambition," said the baronet with a smile; "and whilst
we are here to-day, at his request, to remove the obstacle which your
most deplorable insanity interposes, I hope that the ultimate result
will be your speedy deliverance, with our own, from his power.  We are,
like yourselves, prisoners, but we are by no means hopeless of escape,
and I pledge you my word that we will not leave until we can take you
all with us."

Mrs Scott shook her head somewhat doubtfully.  "We are all infinitely
obliged to you for your generous promise," she said with a sigh; "but I
greatly fear you are somewhat overrating your powers.  The difficulties
of escape--in the first place, from this village, and, in the next
place, from the country itself--are so formidable that we have almost
given up all hope.  May I ask what strange accident brought you hither?"

"Assuredly," answered the baronet.  "And when I have informed you of the
facts, you will see that the difficulties of escape are, after all, not
so very enormous, and I trust that you will all take heart once more."

Sir Reginald then proceeded to give a detailed description of the
_Flying Fish_; and of his own and his companions' adventures in her;
winding up with an account of their capture--so far as they were aware
of its details--and a recital of the grounds upon which they founded
their hopes of escape.

The ladies listened to Sir Reginald's singular story with an
astonishment which they vainly strove to conceal, and had it been
uncorroborated, they would probably have suspected in him a touch of the
same malady with which they were supposed to be afflicted; but, as
matters were, they had no choice but to credit the tale, and very much
gratified they were to learn that there existed a means of conveyance
affording, if they could but once gain access to it, a safe, easy, and
speedy escape from the realms of king M'Bongwele.

Sir Reginald, having brought his story to an end, requested that he and
his companions might be favoured with an account of the manner in which
the ladies had fallen into the hands of the savages, which request Mrs
Scott complied with, somewhat in the following terms:

"It is, to a great extent, my fault that these poor girls find
themselves in the unfortunate position which they occupy to-day.  I have
been a widow for nearly seven years; but, having been early left an
orphan, with no friends in England and many in India, I did not, as many
newly-made widows do, turn my face homeward immediately on my husband's
death; on the contrary, I determined rather to remain in the country of
my adoption, and, being left in tolerably comfortable circumstances,
made arrangements to reside alternately in Delhi and Simla.  These
arrangements I duly carried into effect, and nothing occurred to disturb
them until about a year ago, when my brother, Sir James Lumsden, died,
leaving his motherless daughters--Rose and Lucilla here--in my care,
with an earnest entreaty that I would convey them, at my earliest
convenience, home to their grandfather, who owns a very fine place in
Hampshire, and who would, doubtless, be glad to receive them.  I, of
course, very willingly undertook the duty--not the less so, perhaps,
from the fact that I was myself somewhat ailing, and had been strongly
urged by my medical adviser to try the effect of change and a long sea
voyage.  Our preparations were soon completed, and we journeyed down to
Bombay, at which place I happened to meet my brother-in-law, General
Sabine.  He, poor man, was in a great difficulty just then, being under
orders to proceed at once to Afghanistan, and not knowing what to do
with his daughter, who, I ought to explain, has been motherless from her
infancy.  The best way I could see out of the difficulty was for her to
take the trip home to Europe with us, and, upon my making the proposal,
it was joyfully adopted.  So far all was well; but at this point our
difficulties were to begin.  We, unfortunately, took passage for London
in a sailing ship for my health's sake.  We, or the ship rather, had to
call at the Cape, and, three weeks after we sailed, the captain died.
The chief mate then assumed the command of the vessel, and in a few days
afterwards we found that he was giving way to drink.  That was,
doubtless, the cause of the disaster which followed, for on a dark and
stormy night, whilst the chief mate--or captain, rather, I suppose I
ought to call him--was lying in his berth in a state of almost helpless
intoxication, and the ship was flying before the rising gale under all
the sail the sailors could spread, _we struck_! the masts snapped short
off at the deck, and in a moment all was confusion and panic.  The mate,
or captain, staggered up on deck to see what was the matter, and he had
scarcely reached the poop when a breaker swept down upon the wreck and
washed the unhappy wretch overboard, never to be seen again.  The next
officer--a brave energetic young fellow--then took command, and by his
coolness and courage soon restored order among the crew.  He commanded
the lead-line to be dropped overboard, and by its means ascertained that
the ship was being rapidly driven shoreward by the force of the waves.
Meanwhile the shocks of the ship striking against the ground gradually
grew less and less severe, until they ceased altogether, and the vessel
became motionless save for an occasional sickening lurch when an
exceptionally heavy wave struck her.  By this time it was ascertained
that the hold was nearly full of water, a circumstance from which the
young officer in charge came to the conclusion that the hull was
irretrievably damaged, and he then gave orders to lower the boats.  This
task the sailors with great difficulty accomplished, and then, there
being at the moment no immediate prospect of the wreck going to pieces,
the boats were secured under the shelter of the ship, and it was
determined to defer until daylight our attempt at landing, when the
dangers of the enterprise could be distinctly seen and more easily
avoided.  About two hours elapsed between the first striking of the
vessel and the launching of the boats, during which time I and my nieces
were on deck in our night-dresses, supplemented by such wraps as we had
been able to hastily snatch on the moment of the first alarm.  But when
the boats had been safely lowered into the sea and secured, Mr
Snelgrove (the young officer who had last assumed the command) came to
us, and, in the kindest manner possible, begged us to retire to our
cabins, assuring us that we might do so with perfect safety, and that we
might depend on him to summon us in good time to attempt a landing with
the rest of the crew.  We accordingly took his advice, glad to get back
to the shelter of the saloon, where we at once discarded our wet
garments and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as the
circumstances permitted.  Day broke at length, and then Mr Snelgrove
made his appearance in the saloon, informing us that the weather had
moderated, the sea gone down a good deal, and the tide had ebbed,
rendering it a favourable moment to attempt a landing, which he believed
might be effected without much danger; he further added that the seamen
were then passing provisions and water into the boats, and that he would
allow us ten minutes wherein to select and pack a small bundle of such
clothing and effects as might be deemed by us most necessary.  At length
the eventful moment arrived for us to pass down into the boats, and
though we were assured by the sailors that there was no danger, I never
was so thoroughly frightened in my life, for the sea was still very
rough, leaping, curling, and foaming all round us.  However, we all
managed to embark without accident, and then our boat (which was the
second to make the attempt) pushed off and made for the shore.  The
breakers were appalling, and the boat was turned round with her bow
pointing seaward, and `backed'--I think they called it--toward the
shore.  The sea broke over us several times, half filling the boat; but
two men were kept constantly baling with buckets, and at length--thanks
to Mr Snelgrove's admirable management--we safely reached the beach,
but wet to the skin as a matter of course.  Meanwhile, the first boat,
in charge of the boatswain, had discharged her cargo on the beach, and
was now sent back with four men to the wreck to bring on shore the
remainder of the crew and whatever of value they could lay their hands
upon.  This going to and fro between the beach and the ship lasted
nearly all day, and by nightfall we had quite a large quantity of
provisions, water, canvas, spars, and other matters, and last, but not
least, all my nieces' and my own boxes.  The sailors constructed two
tents in a sheltered spot high up on the beach--one for themselves and
one for us--and we at length retired to spend our first night in the
character of castaways.

"About an hour before daybreak we were rudely awakened--to find
ourselves in the power of the savages.  I am of opinion that we must
have been watched during the whole of the previous day, for the surprise
of the camp was complete; we had been noiselessly surrounded, and,
whilst we unfortunate women were spared, the equally unfortunate men
were, for the most part, slain in their sleep; not one had escaped--at
least we never afterwards saw any of them alive.  The camp was of course
ransacked, and when every man had possessed himself of whatever happened
to take his fancy, we were placed in the centre of the band and conveyed
to this place, where we have been detained close prisoners ever since.
The scattered contents of the camp must afterwards, I fancy, have been
collected and brought to this village, for a few days later our boxes--
broken open and the contents in a dreadfully soiled and disordered
condition--were brought to us, and upon our replying in the affirmative
to the questions put to us by signs as to whether they were our
property, were left in our possession.  I have only to add that the
wreck, and the horrors which succeeded it, proved too much for poor
Lucilla in her then somewhat weak state of health, and she fell into a
low fever with delirium, which prostrated her for nearly three months,
and from the effects of which she has even now not wholly recovered.  It
was during this dreadfully anxious period that those four poor black
creatures were appointed to attend upon us.  They have been most zealous
and faithful in their efforts to help us; they have instructed us to
some extent in their simple language; and they have informed us, not
only that they are cast-off wives of the king, but that he was, and
still is, anxious to secure one (if not more) of my nieces for a wife,
and that the only hope of escape from such a fate lay in our simulating
insanity, which, most reluctantly, we have been compelled to do whenever
M'Bongwele or any of his emissaries have visited us.  But, beyond our
close confinement and this horrible ever-impending danger, we have no
very great cause for complaint, all our expressed wants being instantly
satisfied so far as the resources of the king will permit."

Mrs Scott having thus brought her story to an end, the gentlemen
expressed their sympathy and condolences, and the conversation gradually
grew more general.  At length, much as they would have liked to prolong
the interview, they felt that they had already lengthened it out almost
beyond the bounds of prudence, so they rose to take leave, uttering a
few encouraging remarks, which Sir Reginald rounded off with an
exhortation to them to be ever on the watch, and to hold themselves in
readiness for flight at a moment's notice, adding that one or other of
the gentlemen would visit them as often as possible and keep them well
informed upon the progress of events.



CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

RETRIBUTION OVERTAKES KING M'BONGWELE.

King M'Bongwele had evidently been keenly on the watch for the return of
the four prisoners, for they had scarcely had time to enter their hut
when the monarch presented himself before them, and, with some little
impatience of manner, began his interrogations with the single word:

"Well?"

"We can cure them," briefly answered the professor.

"Good!" ejaculated the king, his impatience yielding to almost childish
delight.  "When is the cure to be performed?"

"Within one span of the sun's journey through the sky after we have
administered a certain medicine, which we must procure from the ship.
Provide us each with a horse to go and fetch this medicine, and I
promise you, that before you see the stars to-night those women shall be
in as full possession of their reason as you are."

"No," said the king, eyeing the professor keenly, "I will arrange better
than that.  You shall tell Lualamba where to find this wonderful
medicine, and he shall fetch it for you."

"That will not do at all," answered the professor.  "Lualamba could
never find the medicine; he could not even gain access to the ship.  We
must fetch it ourselves."

M'Bongwele rested his chin in his hand for some minutes, pondering
deeply.  Then he rose to his feet and stalked out of the hut again
without vouchsafing a word, either "yea" or "nay."

"He is not quite such a fool as he looks," was the baronet's sole
comment upon this strange behaviour, and then they sat down to luncheon.

The king, upon re-entering his palace, at once sent for Lualamba, and,
upon that chief making his appearance, issued strict orders that every
available man, woman, and child, not only in the village but in the
entire district, should be mustered by noon next day, to make one grand
and final attempt to move the ship to the village, pending which the
king decided to hold no further communications with his prisoners.  The
attempt was made in due course, and, like the others, it proved, as
might be expected, a miserable failure.  Poor M'Bongwele was now
completely at a loss; he knew not what to do.  He was most anxious to
have the white women cured; but he had a powerful presentiment that if
those singular beings, whom he certainly to some extent had in his
power, once again set foot upon that curious thing they called a "ship,"
his power over them would be gone for ever.  And in such a case he felt
that his fate was certain; he had laid unholy hands upon them, and dire
would be his punishment.  No; he was convinced that at all costs they
must be debarred from access to that terrible "ship," unless he could
first of all gain their forgiveness, amity, and good-will, and interest
them in his fortunes to the extent of securing their active co-operation
in his schemes of conquest and aggrandisement.  How to do this was,
however, the question which puzzled king M'Bongwele; and it puzzled him
so long that--but stay, we must not forestall the story.

Thus engaged in a futile endeavour to discover a way out of his dilemma,
the king kept himself strictly secluded in his palace day after day,
allowing no one access to him unless upon business of the utmost urgency
and importance.  Meanwhile, Seketulo, deeming the period a favourable
one for the furtherance of his own schemes, first exhibited an increased
amount of precaution in the proper posting of the guard over the
prisoners, and then a gradually growing disposition to converse with the
prisoners themselves.  From this he proceeded to develop an interest,
which, after a suitable lapse of time, was allowed to merge into anxiety
for their welfare and greater comfort, and, finding these cautious
advances well received, he then set to work in real earnest upon the
delicate task of unfolding his proposals.  He was so very cautious,
however, and took so long a time about this, that he missed his
opportunity altogether, and that, too, through a very simple accident.

It happened one night that, after an unusually long, disjointed, and
desultory conversation with this same chief, Mildmay failed to get to
sleep with his usual promptitude, and he lay tossing restlessly upon his
pallet until he became impatient and finally exasperated at his want of
success.  The hut felt hot and stuffy to the verge of suffocation, and
the lieutenant at length came to the conclusion that there was no hope
of his getting to sleep until he had taken a turn or two up and down the
compound, in the comparatively cool night air.

He accordingly scrambled to his feet, and, groping his way in the
intense darkness, made for the verandah.  Here he paused for a moment,
glancing upward to the sky, which he found to be obscured by a dense
canopy of heavy black cloud, portending rain, which sufficiently
accounted for the pitchy darkness.  His eyes at length becoming
accustomed to the obscurity, he looked round for the guard; and he
eventually discovered the various members faithfully occupying their
posts, but, one and all, squatted upon the ground evidently fast asleep.
He stalked out toward the centre of the compound and took two or three
turns up and down its length, his footsteps falling noiselessly upon the
light sandy soil, and not one of the savages manifested the slightest
consciousness of his presence.  Then he gradually extended his walk
until he reached the gate in the palisade, and here too the guard was
fast asleep.  An idea presented itself to him; and he was about to make
an attempt to noiselessly remove the bars and open the gate, when
prudence suggested another and a better plan.  He tiptoed lightly back
to the hut, and, gently awakening each of his companions in turn,
whispered in their ears:

"Up at once!  There is an opportunity for us to effect our escape!"

The aroused sleepers instinctively comprehended the situation and sprang
to their feet.  Another minute, and four shadowy shapes stole
noiselessly across the compound, to vanish almost instantly in the
deeper shadows of the palisading.  The closed gate was reached and
passed, and presently the fugitives found themselves in the angle of the
compound most distant from the slumbering guard.  Here Mildmay offered a
"back" to the baronet, whispering:

"You go first."

Without a word Sir Reginald complied, clambering first upon his
companion's back and thence noiselessly to the top of the palisading.
In another second a faint thud on the outside told that the first
adventurer had successfully scaled the barrier.  "You go next,"
whispered Mildmay to the colonel, "and remain on the top of the palisade
to give the professor a hand."

Up went the colonel, and up after him went the professor.  The latter,
with the baronet's assistance from below on the outside, accomplished
his descent in safety; and then the colonel, reaching as far down as he
could, assisted Mildmay to the top.  The rest was easy; and a minute
later they were cautiously making their way up the road to the top end
of the village, or that which was most thinly inhabited.  At this moment
down came the rain, a regular tropical deluge, which was undoubtedly a
most fortunate circumstance for the fugitives, as they could otherwise
have scarcely hoped to escape the vigilance of the numerous prowling
curs belonging to the village, who, as it was, were driven by the rain
to take refuge in their masters' huts.

Five minutes sufficed the travellers to reach the stout lofty palisade
which inclosed the village; and this, the framework all being on the
inner side, they were easily enabled to surmount.  Once outside this
obstacle, Mildmay assumed the leadership, confidently declaring his
ability to find the ship, though he had only once before, consciously,
passed over the ground between the village and the ruins.

The party made their way in the first place along the outer side of the
palisading until they reached the main entrance gate to the village; and
from this point Mildmay "took his departure."  A well-defined pathway
led for some distance down into the plain, and this they traversed until
the lieutenant believed he had reached the point at which to turn off.
Here he paused for a full minute, looking about him and peering into the
darkness.  The rain was still pelting down, though not so heavily as at
first; and away to the eastward the clouds were already beginning to
break, allowing a star to peep through here and there.  At length
Mildmay thought he had got his bearings right; and, selecting a star to
steer by, away he plunged into the long thick wet grass, his companions
following closely behind.  A few minutes later the rain ceased, the
clouds vanished from the sky, and the stars shone calmly out in all
their beauty, affording an ample sufficiency of light to distinctly
reveal to the wayfarers the nearer clumps of bush, trees, and other
large objects.  Mildmay now paused again, and, shading his eyes with his
hand, once more keenly surveyed the horizon.

"All right," he murmured.  "We are going just right, I believe.  I can
indistinctly make out something away there on the horizon, just ahead,
which I feel certain must be the ruins.  Come along, my hearties; heave
ahead!"

Again they pushed forward, dripping wet, drenched to the skin with the
recent shower, and stumbling every now and then as their feet became
entangled in the long matted grass; now swerving to the right to avoid a
clump of bush, then to the left for the same purpose; but ever keeping
one particular star, low down on the horizon, as nearly straight ahead
as possible.  Though the rest of the party felt themselves utterly lost,
without the faintest notion of where they were going, and though neither
of them could distinguish anything even remotely resembling the ruins,
Mildmay still persisted that he was right; and he continued to press
rapidly forward, the rest following him, since they could do no better.
At length they struck a narrow path through the grass, and Mildmay at
once announced his intention of following it.

"It is a little off our course," he said, "but the walking is so much
easier here that we shall gain more than we shall lose by following it;
and I should not be surprised to find that it leads to the ruins."

Half an hour later a brilliant star suddenly appeared in the dense
darkness ahead.  It shone steadily for nearly a minute, disappeared, and
almost instantly appeared again.

"Hurrah!" ejaculated the lieutenant joyously, "there is the ship's
light.  Now we _know_ that we are right.  Another hour's tramp will, if
all be well, take us alongside.  How I wish I had a pipe of tobacco!"

"Don't mention it!" fervently ejaculated the professor, who was an
ardent lover of the weed.  "However, in another hour, as you say--ah!"

The professor's "ah!" was so very expressive of anticipated pleasure
that his companions with one accord burst into a hearty laugh, which,
however, was abruptly cut short by a low savage growl and a sudden
rustling in the grass close by.

"What was that?" was the simultaneous inquiry as the party came abruptly
to a dead halt.

"Push on, push on!" urged the professor.  "It is some nocturnal animal
prowling in search of prey.  At this moment he is more frightened than
we are; but if we wait here until he has regained his courage he will
perhaps spring on one of us."

The march was accordingly resumed, with perhaps some little
precipitation; and at length Mildmay's companions began to be conscious
of the presence of certain shapeless blotches of blackness rising up
against the sky ahead of them and occasionally obscuring for a few
seconds the now brilliant light which gleamed from the top of the
_Flying Fish's_ pilot-house.  These shapeless blotches of blackness
increased in size with almost startling rapidity; and in a few minutes
the travellers, still following the footpath, found themselves in the
midst of them, winding in and out between great blocks of masonry which
suddenly rose up in front of them in the darkness, and stumbling over
loose boulders and fragments of stone.  At length they found themselves
in the clear open space occupied by the _Flying Fish_; and in another
quarter of an hour the party passed into the black tunnel formed by the
bilge-keel and the side of the ship, and began to feel with their feet
for the open trap-door.  This was soon reached; the party entered the
opening, closed the flap, and, with a murmured "Thank God, we are safe
at last!" began to feel for the button which was to open the door giving
access to the interior proper of the ship.  Another second and this door
swung open, and the party found themselves at the foot of the
cylindrical staircase, in the full blaze of the electric lamps.

"Now," said the baronet, "ten minutes in which to strip, rub down, and
don dry garments, and then we will be off to the rescue of those poor
women, after which I think we must give our friend M'Bongwele a salutary
lesson on the evil and impolicy of treachery."

The allotted ten minutes had not quite expired when the professor, the
last of the party, made his appearance in the pilot-house, by which time
the _Flying Fish_ was some five hundred feet in the air, with her nose
pointing in the direction of M'Bongwele's village, and her propeller
driving her ahead at full speed.  The electric lights of the ship were
all called into requisition for the illumination of the landscape,
producing a weird and ghostlike effect as the trees and clumps of bush
first caught the light and then brightened into full radiance as they
flashed past, to instantly fade again into obscurity.  A startled howl
or two smote upon the ears of the travellers, and the forms of hastily
retreating animals were momentarily caught sight of; but all eyes were
intently directed ahead in anxious expectancy of catching sight of the
village, and presently it came into view.  The speed was at once reduced
and the vessel's flight directed earthward, and in another moment she
dashed through the palisade, shivering the principal entrance gate to
splinters, and (as was intended) frightening the guard clean out of
their senses.  With one shrill, piercing scream of terror, as they
caught sight of the dazzling bow lights of the ship, the sable warriors
took to their heels and vanished in the darkness, whilst the _Flying
Fish_ was dexterously brought to earth close alongside the hut tenanted
by Mrs Scott and her nieces.  That appalling yell effectually awakened
the entire occupants of the hut; and whilst they were sitting up on
their pallets, rubbing their eyes and wondering what the terrible sound
might portend, the portiere was pushed aside and the professor, bearing
a hand-lamp, unceremoniously made his appearance before them with an
earnest request that they would dress with all speed and join him on the
outside of the hut, where he would await them, the hour of their
deliverance having arrived.

A quarter of an hour later the bewildered ladies were conducted by von
Schalckenberg in through the trapdoor in the bottom of the _Flying Fish_
and up the cylindrical staircase to the saloon, where they were warmly
welcomed by the other three gentlemen, who, after a few congratulatory
remarks on their fortunate escape, retired to secure and convey on board
the boxes containing the remainder of their guests' wardrobes.  This
done, Mrs Scott and her nieces were conducted to the cabins assigned
for their use, and the gentlemen then retreated to the pilot-house,
where, over a keenly enjoyed pipe, a hasty council was held as to what
should be done with M'Bongwele.

This question was settled just as the first faint streaks of approaching
dawn began to brighten the eastern horizon, when the ship was moved up
into the great square before the king's house, where the whole of the
king's body-guard were drawn up under arms, and, beyond them, the
remaining inhabitants of the village, a dense, surging, excited,
squabbling crowd.

On the approach of the _Flying Fish_ the latter flung themselves face
downwards, in abject terror, to the ground, and the armed and mounted
warriors betrayed a disposition to stampede which was only with the
utmost difficulty checked and restrained by Seketulo.  Even this chief
found himself unable to wholly conceal the feeling of nervousness which
agitated him; but he in this trying moment enjoyed a consciousness,
unshared by any other man there present, of having done his best to make
the erstwhile prisoners comfortable.

As the huge ship settled quietly down in the centre of the great square
a profound and deathlike silence suddenly succeeded the confused
babbling sound which had hitherto prevailed, and when the four
travellers stepped out from the pilot-house to the deck and appeared at
the gangway a visible shudder ran through the entire concourse of people
there assembled.  They dreaded they knew not what, and their fears were
only in a very trifling degree allayed by the promise of intercession on
their behalf which Seketulo had made to them.

The professor was of course to be spokesman for the occasion; it was he,
therefore, who broke the terrible silence by exclaiming, in a loud,
commanding tone of voice:

"Seketulo, we are your friends.  Advance, therefore, and listen to the
commands which we are about to lay upon you!"

The reassured and now happy chief struck with his spurred heels the
sides of his charger, and the animal, bounding and caracoling, advanced
to within a few yards of the ship's side, where his rider dismounted
and, with bowed head and bended knee, waited for such communication as
might be vouchsafed him.

"Listen, O Seketulo!" continued the professor.  "We entered this country
animated by feelings of the most amicable nature to its king and to
every one of its inhabitants.  We showed this by distributing presents
of beads, cloth, and other matters when Lualamba and his warriors first
visited us.  And we asked for nothing in return save permission to
examine and explore the ruins on yonder plain; offering to pay promptly
and liberally for whatever assistance we might need.  Is not this the
truth?"

"It is, O most mighty wizard," answered Seketulo humbly; some of the
braver warriors also venturing to murmur:

"It is!  It is!"

"And how have we been treated?" asked the professor.  "Your king, not
satisfied with our friendship and the presents we gave him, wickedly and
treacherously devised a scheme to get us into his power--a scheme which,
in order to try him, we permitted to succeed.  And, having done that, he
further attempted to gain possession of this ship,"--this fact having
leaked out in Seketulo's previous conversations--"profanely and
audaciously thinking he could subdue her to his will and control her as
we do.  Now, therefore, be it understood by all present that, for his
base treachery, _M'Bongwele is dethroned_, and Seketulo will, from this
moment, reign in his stead.  Let a detachment of the guard enter the
palace and bring M'Bongwele forth to hear his sentence!"

In an instant Lualamba--anxious above all things to please the powers
that be, and having, moreover, in revengeful remembrance many little
gratuitous slights and insults which he had suffered at the king's
hands--dismounted a squadron of the guard, and, surrounding the palace,
himself entered the building at the head of half a dozen men.  Two or
three minutes later the party reappeared with the dethroned monarch in
their midst.  They advanced until almost level with the spot occupied by
Seketulo, when, at a sign from the professor, they halted; the guards
disposing themselves round M'Bongwele in such a manner that, whilst to
escape was an utter impossibility, he could still see and hear the
individual who, perched far aloft in the gangway of the ship, was about
to address him.

M'Bongwele never, perhaps, looked more kingly than whilst he thus stood
to receive his sentence of dethronement.  He was fully conscious of his
treacherous behaviour to his guests, but he felt no shame thereat, for
he had been schooled in the belief that treachery, falsehood, ay, even
deliberate, cold-blooded murder, was perfectly justifiable in the
pursuit of power.  His only feeling was that he had played a bold game
for a high stake and had lost it.  The moment of reckoning had now
arrived, the penalty of failure had to be paid, and though he knew not
what that penalty might be--though his brain was teeming with all sorts
of possible and impossible horrors--he never for a moment forgot that he
was a monarch, that the eyes of his people were on him, noting his every
look and gesture, and he summoned all his fortitude to his aid, in order
that, since fall he must, he should fall as becomes a king.

So there he stood in the bright sunlight of the early morning--an
unarmed man, surrounded by those who, whilst they would yesterday have
poured out their heart's blood at his command, were now prepared to hew
him in pieces at the bidding of a white-skinned stranger--with arms
folded across the muscular naked chest which throbbed visibly with the
intensity of his hardly repressed emotions, his head thrown back, his
brows knitted, his lips firmly closed over his rigidly set teeth, and
his eyes unquailingly fixed upon the group of white men whom he
recognised and tacitly acknowledged as his conquerors and judges.  And
when the sentence of dethronement, separation from his family, and
instant banishment for life from his country, was pronounced upon him,
he offered no plea for pardon or mitigation of his punishment; he urged
nothing in extenuation or justification of his conduct, but simply bowed
his head in token of his submission to the inevitable, and begged a
respite of a few minutes in which to bid farewell to his family before
setting out upon his journey to the frontier, whither he was to be
escorted by a small well-armed party, in whom Seketulo knew he could
place implicit trust.

This somewhat painful scene over, the troops and people there present
were required to swear allegiance and fidelity to their new king, which
they readily did with all the formalities customary among them on such
occasions; after which the crown of gold and feathers worn by M'Bongwele
was brought forward and placed upon Seketulo's head; and the new king
was then invited on board the ship to confer with--and in reality to
receive instructions respecting his future policy and conduct from--the
men who had raised him to the supreme dignity.  The advice--given with
sufficient firmness and emphasis to constitute a command--comprised many
valuable hints for the wise and humane government of the nation, and was
concluded with a powerful exhortation to treat with fairness, justice,
humanity, and hospitality all strangers who might be brought by accident
or otherwise into the country; to succour, nourish, and carefully
protect them from molestation or spoliation of any and every kind whilst
within its borders; and to afford them every help and facility to leave
whensoever they might desire.  And, finally, a satisfactory arrangement
was made whereby the baronet and his companions were enabled to continue
and complete their exploration and examination of the ruins.

The _Flying Fish_ and her inmates remained in the country for rather
more than three months from that date; quite long enough to satisfy the
party that they had really acted wisely, and for the benefit of the
nation, in deposing M'Bongwele; and long enough to enable them to make
several most surprising and interesting discoveries among the ruins--
discoveries which it is not necessary to describe or particularise here,
since the professor has prepared, and is now revising for the press, an
elaborate and exhaustive treatise upon the subject.



CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

AN ADVENTURE ON THE TOP OF MOUNT EVEREST.

Leaving the country at last--to the very great regret of the
inhabitants, who found that every little service rendered to the white
strangers was munificently rewarded by a present of beads, buttons,
party-coloured cloth, or perhaps a small hand mirror--the travellers
made the best of their way to Bombay, at which place Mrs Scott and her
nieces were anxious to be landed, and there they bade their fair guests
a reluctant adieu.  Thence, starting under cover of night and rising to
a height of about ten thousand feet above the ground surface, the
travellers made their way across the Indian peninsula in a north-
easterly direction, travelling at a speed of about one hundred miles per
hour, and arriving about eight o'clock the next morning at the foot of
Mount Everest, the summit of which--towering into the sky to the
enormous altitude of twenty-nine thousand feet above the sea-level, and
believed to be the most lofty spot of earth on the surface of our
globe--they intended attempting to reach.

Here, on a magnificent grassy plateau surrounded by trees, and with not
a single sign of human life at hand, the _Flying Fish_ was brought to
earth and temporarily secured whilst the party took breakfast.

"Now," said the professor as they rose from the breakfast-table, "in
seeking to plant our feet upon the topmost peak of Mount Everest we are
about to enter upon a task of no ordinary difficulty and danger, and it
is desirable that no avoidable risks should be run.  The danger arises
from two causes--the excessive cold, and the highly rarefied state of
the atmosphere at so enormous an elevation.  The first can be guarded
against by suitable clothing; the second can only be overcome by the
assumption of our diving dresses.  The latter, no doubt, seems to you a
strange precaution; but it is a fact, that on the top of Mount Everest
the air is too thin to support life, at all events in comfort, and for
any but the briefest possible time; so we must take up our air with us.
Let us therefore go and make these necessary changes of costume before
we attempt moving the ship from her present position."

Half an hour later, the party, accoutred in their diving armour--between
which and their ordinary clothing they had interposed stout warm flannel
overalls--and armed with small ice-hatchets, mustered in the pilot-
house; the ship was released from the ground, a vacuum created in her
air-chambers, and upward she at once shot into the clear blue cloudless
sky.  A few minutes only sufficed her to soar to the height of ten
thousand feet, after which her progress upward, as indicated by the
steadily falling column of mercury in the tube of the barometer,
gradually decreased in velocity.  At the height of twenty-nine thousand
feet the mercury ceased to fall, or the ship ceased to rise, which
amounted to the same thing, and Mount Everest lay before them, its snowy
peak glistening in the sun ten miles away, and its topmost pinnacle
still towering somewhere about five hundred feet above the line of their
horizon.

"Well," said the professor, remarking upon their failure to attain a
greater altitude, "I anticipated this; I was quite prepared to find that
here, where the sun is so much more nearly vertical than it is with us
in England, we should meet with a more rarefied atmosphere.  However, we
cannot help it.  We must do what we can; and if we fail to reach the
summit we shall simply be obliged to descend again, rid ourselves
temporarily of a few of our more weighty matters, and then renew the
attempt.  Perhaps we may be enabled to _force_ her up that remaining
five hundred feet by the power of her engines.  Let us try."

The engines were sent ahead at full speed, and the _Flying Fish_ rushed
toward the glittering peak, the professor so adjusting the helm as to
give the ship's bows a slight upward inclination.  The experiment
resulted in partial success, an additional elevation of some two hundred
feet being attained, but beyond that it was found impossible to go; even
then it was necessary to keep the ship moving at full speed, and to
maintain the upward inclination of her bows, in order to preserve the
slight additional height gained, her tendency being to sink immediately
upon any relaxation of speed.  It was resolved to be satisfied with
this, to effect a landing somewhere, and to attempt surmounting the
remaining three hundred feet by climbing.  A landing-place was next
sought for, and this was at length found on the northern side of the
mountain, on a sidelong slanting snow-bank, which seemed to have
accumulated between two projecting crags.  It was by no means a
desirable spot on which to effect a landing, the area of the bank being
very small, and the surface sloping most awkwardly; however, it was the
best place the travellers could find, and they were therefore obliged to
rest content with it; so the ship was headed toward it, and in another
second or two a harsh grating sound, accompanied by an upward surge,
showed that she had taken the ground, or rather the snow-bank.  The
engines were then stopped, and the grip-anchors brought into requisition
to secure her in her somewhat precarious berth.

"Well, here we are," exclaimed the baronet; "and the next thing, I
suppose, is to land and commence our climb without loss of time.  What a
wild-looking spot it is, to be sure; if I were to stand looking at it
long I believe I should lose my nerve and shirk the task."

"Better not look at it any longer, then, until we can contemplate the
prospect from the peak away up aloft there," remarked the practical
Mildmay.  "But," he continued, "I don't half like the idea of going out
upon that sloping slippery surface of frozen snow that the ship has
grounded upon; a single slip or false step and away one would go over
the edge, to bring up, perhaps, on a rock a thousand feet below.  I
shall hook on the rope-ladder, and endeavour to make a start from yonder
naked spur of rock."

The others also seemed to think this the wisest plan, and in a few
minutes they were making their way cautiously down the rope-ladder one
after the other, the baronet, an experienced mountaineer, leading, and
Mildmay bringing up the rear.

The adventurers soon found that their task was likely to be a great deal
more difficult and hazardous than they had at all contemplated.  The
snow-bank upon which the _Flying Fish_ rested proved to be the only even
approximately level spot at that elevation; the rocks rising almost
sheer above them everywhere, with only an occasional crevice here and
there by way of foothold, and in many places the precipice was coated
with treacherous frozen snow, sometimes tenacious enough to afford a
momentary support, but more often crumbling away beneath the weight of
the body.  Slowly and steadily, however, they worked their way upward--
now occupying perhaps five minutes to advance as many feet, and anon
hitting upon a favourable spot where twenty or thirty feet might be
gained in a single minute.  At length, after a toilsome and hazardous
climb of more than an hour's duration, the baronet found himself
clinging to a slender pinnacle of rock about seven feet high and four
feet in diameter, upon the top of which he next moment triumphantly
seated himself.  The colonel, the professor, and Mildmay speedily
followed, and there they sat, undoubtedly the first human beings who had
ever reached the topmost pinnacle of Mount Everest.

Having accomplished the ascent, they now settled themselves down as
comfortably as they could upon their narrow perch to enjoy at leisure
the magnificent view spread out around them, a view such as no human eye
had ever before looked upon, and which even _they_ would probably never
have another opportunity of beholding.  The atmosphere, most
fortunately, was exceptionally clear and transparent, not a vestige of
cloud or vapour being anywhere visible; the view was therefore
unobstructed to the very verge of the horizon, which extended round them
in a gigantic circle measuring _four hundred and eighteen miles in
diameter_.

Northward of them stretched the vast plains of Thibet, the only object
worthy of notice being the river Sampoo, which, although sixty miles
distant, was distinctly seen as it issued from the purplish-grey haze of
the extreme distance on their left, meandering along the plain beneath
for a visible distance of nearly two hundred miles before its course
became again lost in the haze on their right hand.  Eight and left of
them stretched the vast mountain chain of the Himalayas, their wooded
slopes and countless peaks and cones presenting a bewildering yet
charming picture of variegated colour, sunlight and shadow, as they
dwindled away on either hand until all suggestion of local colouring was
swallowed up and lost in an enchanting succession of increasingly pure
and delicate soft pearly greys, which merged and melted at last into the
vague shapeless all-pervading purple-grey of the horizon.  Glancing
immediately around and beneath them their blood curdled and their brains
whirled with the vertigo which seized them as they peered appalled and
shrinkingly down upon the sharp crags, the sheer precipices, the
steeply-sloping snow-fields with their lower edges generally overhanging
some fathomless abyss, the great glaciers, the awful crevasses spanned
here and there by crumbling snow bridges--the effect of the scene being
heightened and intensified in its impressive grandeur by the deathlike
silence which prevailed, broken only by the occasional thunderous roar
of an avalanche far below.  The scene was absolutely fascinating in its
appalling sublimity; but it was a relief to turn the eye further afield
until it rested to the eastward upon the grandly towering mass of
Everest's rival, snow-capped Kunchinjinga, which reared its giant crest
aloft to a height of twenty-eight thousand five hundred feet above the
sea-level, and which, though it was eighty-five miles away, appeared to
be almost within rifle-shot.  And still more was it a relief to turn the
eye in an opposite direction, and to allow it to rest upon the
glittering summit of Dhawalagiri, which, at a distance of no less than
_two hundred and forty miles_, gleamed faint and softly opalescent out
of the western haze.  And, lastly, to the southward of them they beheld
the fertile province of Nepaul, watered by countless tributaries to the
mighty Ganges; and, beyond it again, the still more fertile province of
Oudh.  The professor, totally forgetful of his exceedingly perilous
position, was enthusiastically expatiating, after his usual manner, upon
the marvellous extent and beauty of the prospect, and interrupting the
flow of his eloquence at short intervals to assure his companions that
a--to them--invisible object on the far horizon _must_ be the town of
Patna, when a terrific crackling crash just below them drew the eyes of
the party in that direction, just in time for them to see the supposed
projecting crag--in reality an enormous mass of ice--which supported the
snow-bank on which the _Flying Fish_ rested, break off and go thundering
down into the unfathomable depths below.  The spectators clung to each
other in helpless nerveless terror at so appalling a spectacle as the
falling of this mass, weighing probably millions of tons; but the full
significance and import of the catastrophe did not present itself to
their dazed and bewildered senses until they beheld the _Flying Fish_,
after following the falling mass for a couple of hundred feet, recover
herself and float jauntily in the air, _adrift_, at a distance of fully
two thousand feet from the mountain side.  Then, indeed, the full horror
of their position began to slowly dawn upon them, and they looked at
each other with eyes in which could be read a despair too deep and too
complete to need or find expression in words.  Their long search for a
landing-place that morning had unconsciously impressed upon them a fact
which now--and not till now--took intelligible shape within their
brains, and it was this: they could descend the mountain as far as the
spot at which they had left the _Flying Fish, but no further_; beyond
that point further descent, with the means at their disposal, was
impossible.  Which meant, in plain language and few words, that, sooner
or later, they would try to get down, and either be dashed to pieces in
the attempt or perish miserably of starvation upon the edge of some
ghastly impassable precipice.

It took but a moment for these ideas to shape themselves intelligibly,
and then a general movement was made to commence the descent and thus
cut short a state of suspense which would soon become unbearable.

But at this moment the colonel interposed with a word of caution.

"One moment," said he.  "Before we start let each one of us clearly
understand that perfect coolness and presence of mind is imperatively
necessary if we would emerge from this strait alive.  We _may_ perhaps
find a way down after all, but in order to do so we must have our wits
completely about us; let no man move, therefore, until he has fully
recovered the control of his nerves; when all have done so we will make
a start, and I will go last."

"And I first," exclaimed the baronet, "because, next to you, I believe I
am the most experienced mountaineer of the party."

The colonel's little speech produced a most beneficial effect upon the
nerves of the whole party, his own included; and now, without further
ado, a general start was made, the baronet going first and directing and
helping the professor, who followed him; Mildmay going third, also
helping von Schalckenberg, and being helped in his turn by Lethbridge,
and the latter bringing up the rear.

The descent, owing to the perpendicular precipices over which they had
to pass, and the extremely dangerous character, generally, of the road,
proved to be even more tedious and difficult than the ascent; and within
the first quarter of an hour (during which they had accomplished only
about one hundred feet of perpendicular descent) every one of the party
had experienced at least one narrow escape from certain death.

Steadily, however, they toiled on; foot by foot they crept down the face
of the icy precipice, and at length they reached a ledge nearly a foot
in width, upon which the entire party were enabled to pause for a minute
or two to rest and relieve their tired and quivering muscles.

When their feet were safely planted upon this ledge Mildmay spoke.

"I may now venture," he said, "to call your attention to a fact which I
feared to mention before, lest it should upset the balance of your
nerves and produce a catastrophe.  It is this.  The _Flying Fish_,
floating undisturbed in this motionless air, is, in obedience to the law
of gravitation, slowly but steadily being drawn in toward the side of
the mountain; and if--which God grant--it remains perfectly calm up here
for another quarter of an hour, she will be once more alongside, and we
may yet regain access to her.  To do this, however, we must edge away
more toward the eastern side of the mountain, where I fear we shall
encounter even greater difficulties than we have yet met with.  We can
but try, however, and I think the sooner we push on the better."

"Forward, then, at once," cried the baronet; "and take heed to your
steps, my friends, for this ice is terribly smooth and slippery."

Once more was the journey resumed, the baronet availing himself of the
ledge, as far as it extended, to work his way round the shoulder of the
hill in the required direction; and by the time they reached a point
where actual descent had again become necessary, they had once more come
within sight of the ship, and had the satisfaction of seeing that she
had drawn sensibly nearer to the cliff.

"All right," exclaimed Sir Reginald cheerfully, "I see the spot we must
aim for--that pinnacle of bare rock yonder, and there is a tolerably
easy road down to it, moreover."

Away they now went, their spirits at the very highest pitch of
exhilaration, and their nerves by so much the steadier, and such rapid
progress did they make that ten minutes later saw them clustered
together clinging to the rocky pinnacle before mentioned.  And a
gruesome-enough looking spot it was--a sharp projecting point of rock
overhanging a sheer precipice some two hundred feet deep, with a narrow
snow-bank immediately beneath, and then another frightful abyss of
unknown depth beyond.  And, to the right and left of it, an almost
vertical face of bare rock coated with smooth, slippery, transparent
ice, any attempt to traverse which would be courting death in its most
horrible form.

The _Flying Fish_ seemed to be drifting steadily in toward this pinnacle
of rock, though at a depth of some twenty feet below it, and it was
resolved to pause there and allow events to develop somewhat before
exerting themselves further.

Slowly, very slowly, the _Flying Fish_ drifted nearer and nearer in; the
little party clustered upon the rock watching her with bated breath, and
every moment dreading that a faint air of wind might after all waft her
beyond their reach.  But nothing of the sort occurred; in she steadily
came, until at last her starboard gangway was immediately underneath the
party.

"Now or never!" exclaimed Sir Reginald.  "I am going to make a jump for
her.  We shall scarcely have a better chance; and breeze may at any
moment sweep round the face of the rock and carry her away from us.
Lethbridge and Mildmay, let me steady myself by your shoulders whilst I
stand on the extreme point of the rock.  Stand firm, now; I am about to
jump.  Are you ready?  Then--one--_two_--THREE!"

The body of the baronet darted outward from the face of the rock,
Mildmay and the colonel retaining their footing with the utmost
difficulty under the recoil from the outward impulse; and then the three
men left behind on the rock craned their necks over the precipice to
watch the result.

The sight which met their eyes caused their hair to bristle and their
blood to curdle with horror.  Sir Reginald had either miscalculated his
distance, or his foot had slipped in the act of springing, for instead
of alighting upon the ship's deck, as he had intended, he had fallen on
the circular bilge of the vessel, from whence, after an unavailing
struggle to secure a footing, he slid off, and, with a piercing scream,
went whirling downward until he alighted on the narrow snow-bank some
two hundred feet below.  His horror-stricken companions fully expected
to see him rebound and go plunging over the edge of the next precipice,
but luckily the snow upon which he had fallen was so deep that his body
sank into it, and there he lay, motionless.

"Merciful Heaven, he is killed!" ejaculated the colonel with stammering
lips.

"Perhaps not," returned Mildmay; "at all events we will hope for the
best.  Let me see if I can do better.  _Quick_--out of the way--ah!  The
wind after all!  We are too late!"

And even as he spoke the bows of the _Flying Fish_ swung slowly round,
and her hull was swept gently away from the face of the cliff by a
capricious zephyr which just then came creeping along the mountain side.



CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

HOW THE ADVENTURE TERMINATED.

The silence of despair again settled upon the three remaining
travellers; they had lost one of their party, and were a second time
left stranded upon that terrible mountain top, from which it now began
to appear that there was no possibility of escape.  One thing at least
was certain, which was, that on their side of the mountain there was no
means of further descent; the pinnacle of rock upon which they then
stood was the lowest accessible point; there was no possible way even of
reaching poor Sir Reginald's body, and the way downward, if indeed such
existed, must be sought elsewhere.

They crouched where they were, in helpless bewilderment, watching the
ship until she slowly drifted out of sight round a projecting bluff; and
then, in a dazed, halfhearted way, and with nerves all unstrung by
disappointment and the dreadful accident which had befallen the baronet,
they began to slowly retrace their steps, in the faint hope of stumbling
upon some means of escape.

Led this time by the colonel, Mildmay bringing up the rear, the little
party at last made their way back to the narrow ledge where they had
previously paused to rest, and here they again made a momentary halt,
afterwards following the ledge in the other direction until it
terminated abruptly in an almost perpendicular wall of smooth rock.
Another ledge was here discovered, about eighteen feet further down, but
it was certainly not more than a foot wide, with apparently a vertical
fall of several hundred feet beyond.  This ledge extended right and left
beyond their range of vision, and had evidently been traversed by them
in their original ascent, for their footprints were plainly visible in
the snow with which it was covered; if, therefore, they could reach it,
it would at least be possible to return to their original starting-
point, which would certainly be something gained.  But how to get down
to it was the question.  They had grown bewildered in their gropings
round about the summit, and knew not in which direction to go to regain
the lost path.  They might, of course, go on climbing until they were
once more at the very top of the mountain, and commence their descent
afresh, but this was a task so full of difficulty and peril as not to be
thought of, save as a last resort.  Besides, the day was already on the
wane, and it was of the utmost importance that they should reach some
place of comparative safety before nightfall.  At length Mildmay hit
upon a bold though terribly dangerous mode of mastering the difficulty.

"Look here," he said, "it is no use hesitating here; we shall never do
any good at this rate.  Let me offer a suggestion.  I will lower myself
down over the ledge until I hang from it by my hands alone; then you,
Lethbridge, must climb down over me, using my body as a ladder (or a
rope, rather), and when you are hanging at arm's-length from my feet
there will only remain a very trifling drop to the lower ledge, which
you can surely accomplish in safety.  That done you must stand by to
steady me and prevent me, if possible, from going backward over the
precipice; and, with us two safely on the ledge, we are surely men
enough to catch the professor when he makes the drop.  What say you to
the plan?"

"It is frightfully dangerous, but it is perhaps worth trying--if you
think you have the strength for it.  What say you, professor?  Have you
nerve enough to make the drop, trusting to us to catch you?"

"Anything is better than this," answered the professor.  "Your own and
Mildmay's are the most difficult portions of the task.  If you are equal
to your parts I will perform mine; but my strength is not sufficient to
justify my offering to change places with either of you."

"Then let us try it," exclaimed the colonel decisively.  "Will you go
first, Mildmay, or shall I?"

"You go first," answered Mildmay.  "I am pretty strong in the arms, and
think the method I have proposed the safest, on the whole."

"All right, then.  I am ready whenever you are."

"Stand firm, then, and let me steady myself down over the ledge by your
leg--we shall be down, one way or another, all the sooner.  Now, look
out, I am going!"

The colonel braced himself as firmly as possible against the strain, and
Mildmay lowered himself cautiously down until he hung from the ledge by
both hands.  Then, without wasting a moment, Lethbridge carefully placed
himself in position, got down on his knees, lowered one foot until it
rested on Mildmay's shoulder, then the other; firmly grasped the ledge
with both hands, outside Mildmay's; got his knees down on Mildmay's
shoulders, and then, warning the lieutenant to hold firm, grasped him by
both wrists and proceeded as rapidly and carefully as possible to slide
down his body until he hung to him by a firm hand-grasp round the
ankles.  The muscles of poor Mildmay's hands and arms quivered and
fairly cracked with the terrible strain thrown upon them during the
latter part of this manoeuvre; but he set his teeth hard, remembering
that the lives of the whole party depended upon him just then, and hung
on.  It was not for long.  The colonel paused only for a moment to give
one downward glance at the spot upon which he was about to drop, and
then let go.  He pitched fairly on the ledge, slipped, staggered for a
moment, _almost_ went over, but recovered himself and stood firm.  Then
moving a little to one side he prepared to receive Mildmay, and gave him
the word to drop.  It came none too soon, for the lieutenant's quivering
muscles were already failing him, his nerveless fingers were already
relaxing their grasp, and he felt that he must let go, whether or not,
in another moment.  At the cry from Lethbridge he released his hold, and
next moment, with the colonel's arm thrown firmly round his waist, stood
safely on the ledge.

It was next the professor's turn; but now that the critical moment had
arrived for him too to drop from one ledge to another, the unwelcome
discovery was made that his nerves were unequal to the task, and for
some time persuasion, cajolery, entreaties, and threats proved equally
unavailing to tempt him to the enterprise.  At length, however, in a fit
of desperation he essayed the task, hurried over it, missed his hold,
and went whirling outward from the face of the cliff.  In another
instant he would have been over the precipice, and plunging headlong
downward to the death which awaited him thousands of feet below, but
most fortunately both Mildmay and the colonel saw the mishap, and made a
simultaneous snatch at him; the former succeeded in grasping him by the
arm, and, before either of the trio had time to fully realise what had
actually happened, poor von Schalckenberg was dragged--pale, breathless,
and completely unnerved--in upon the ledge.

A few minutes were allowed the unhappy professor in which to recover his
presence of mind, and then the little party cautiously worked their way
downward along the ledge, finally arriving half an hour later on the
narrow platform of ice which was now all that remained of the plateau
whereon the _Flying Fish_ had been grounded.

It had been the intention of the unfortunate adventurers to make a
temporary halt here, for the purpose of recruiting their exhausted
energies so far as it might be done by taking a few minutes' rest, but
the ice was so shivered by the shock of its recent rupture as to present
a very insecure appearance, and they were therefore constrained to keep
moving notwithstanding their fatigue.  Very fortunately the breaking
away of the snow-bank had, in one place, laid bare the surface of the
rock, which here was very jagged and uneven (which would probably
account for the original accumulation of the snow in that spot), and
these irregularities were promptly utilised as a means of further
descent.  By their aid an additional two hundred feet of downward
movement was slowly and painfully accomplished, and then Mildmay (who
was now leading the way) found himself within a foot or two of the lower
edge of an almost perpendicular slope overhanging an awful abyss of
unfathomable depth, his further progress downward being barred by the
fact that beneath him the rock sloped _inwards_!  A single downward
glance sufficed not only to reveal to him his appalling situation, but
also to wring from his lips such a piercing cry of horror as effectually
warned his friends from following him any further.  Then he pressed his
body close to the face of the rock, and clung there convulsively with
feet and hands to the trifling irregularities of surface which alone
afforded him a hold, his blood curdling and his brain reeling at the
thought of the horrible deadly danger which menaced him.  A single slip
of hand or foot, a momentary failure of a muscle, the slightest seizure
of cramp or vertigo, and he would go whirling headlong downward at least
five hundred feet sheer through the air before reaching the ground
below.  He was so unnerved that he was actually incapable of replying to
the colonel's anxious hail as to what was the matter.

It was whilst he stood thus vainly striving to recover his self-
control--a growing conviction of the impossibility of escape meanwhile
forcing itself with momentarily increasing intensity upon him--that a
huge moving mass suddenly swung into view round a projection on his
left, and a simultaneous cry of surprise from his two waiting and
wondering companions told that they too had caught sight of it.  It was
the _Flying Fish_ slowly drifting round the mountain, stern on, and that
too so closely that her propeller actually touched the rocky projection,
some thirty feet off, as she passed it.  The force of the contact,
though very gentle, was sufficient to give her a slight outward impulse;
and though she continued to drift round toward the rock to which the
adventurers were clinging, it appeared as though she would pass it at
such a distance as would _just_ preclude the possibility of their
reaching her.

"We must shout," exclaimed Mildmay, finding his voice all at once; "we
must shout to George.  Perhaps our cries may reach him and bring him on
deck, in which event we shall be able to tell him what to do."

And shout they did, simultaneously, and at the full power of their
lungs; but it was of no avail--George and the cook were both at that
moment in the innermost recesses of the ship busily engaged on their
respective avocations, and in all likelihood profoundly ignorant of the
state of affairs.  At all events there was no response, and the ship
went drifting slowly past.  She was floating almost level with the
little party clinging there desperately to the face of the naked rock,
the boss of her propeller being at just about the same height as the
colonel's head.  As she drove almost imperceptibly along it seemed to
Mildmay that she was also being drawn inward toward the face of the
rock; and he began to ask himself whether an active man might not, after
all, be able to overleap the intervening space and grasp one of the
propeller-blades.  The craft was so tantalisingly close that it seemed
to him almost a cowardly thing to let this chance pass; yet, when he
glanced downward at the darkening abyss over which he hung, he
shudderingly confessed to himself that the leap was an impossibility,
and that they must retreat upward with all speed to gain some
comparatively secure spot upon which to pass the night now gathering
about them.  He was about to put this thought into words, and to propose
an immediate upward movement, when he turned to take (as he believed) a
last parting glance at the _Flying Fish_, now immediately behind him.
In doing so his fingers slipped and lost their grip upon the rock, and
before he could recover his hold he found himself going over backwards.
He felt that he was lost; but, with the instinct of self-preservation,
turned quickly on his feet, and as they too were slipping off the minute
projections on which he had been supporting himself, he made a vigorous
desperate spring outward from the face of the rock, reaching forward
into space toward the curved end of the propeller-blade which he saw in
front of him.  Despair must have leant him extra strength when making
that last awful leap, for, though the distance was fully twenty feet, he
actually reached and succeeded in grasping the end of the blade.  To
swing himself up astride upon it was the work of a moment; and then he
paused to rest and recover from this last shock to his nervous system.
Not for long, however; he knew that his companions must be nearly
exhausted, and that their lives now probably depended solely on his
activity and the celerity with which he might be able to go to their
rescue; so he pulled himself together, shouted to them the encouraging
news of his success, and then devoted himself in earnest to the
difficult and perilous task of reaching the deck of the ship.  He had
hardly begun this task before he realised that it was one which would
tax his strength, energy, and ingenuity to their utmost extent.  The
propeller-blade upon which he was perched happened to be at the very
lowest point of its revolution; and his first task must be to reach the
boss, which was about seventeen feet above his head.  The peculiar shape
of the blades rendered it impossible for him to achieve this by climbing
up the edge of any one of them; his only chance consisted in working his
way from one to the other.  The blade to his right seemed to him the
most easily accessible, and he forthwith set about the work of reaching
it.  To do this he had to climb about ten feet up the fore _edge_ of the
blade upon which he was perched, and to anyone but a sailor this would
have been an impossibility.  Even to Mildmay it proved a most difficult
as well as hazardous feat; but after a couple of failures success
crowned his efforts, and he found himself high enough to reach the point
of the next blade.  This was so far away, however, that he could only
touch it with his finger-tips, and in order to grasp it--even with _one_
hand--he found that he would be obliged to overbalance himself so much
that, if he missed, a fall must inevitably result.  The risk had to be
taken, however; and he took it, fortunately with success.  This left him
swinging by _one_ hand from the point of the propeller-blade; but in
another second he had grasped it with his other hand, and, after a
struggle or two, managed to get fairly astride the edge.  His next task
was to work himself in along the edge until he was abreast the after
edge of the blade he had just left, when he had to reach over to the
utmost stretch of his arms, grasp the blade, and in that awkward
position scramble to his feet.  This he also managed, when a further
comparatively easy climb enabled him to reach the boss.  He now found
himself standing on the boss and leaning against the smooth elliptical
stern of the vessel.  His next task was to climb up over this smooth
rounded surface and so make his way along the upper surface of the hull
to the superstructure, when he would soon find means to reach the deck.
This also, though a task of immense difficulty, he actually
accomplished; finally reaching the deck in so prostrate a condition that
he fell insensible before he could gain the pilot-house.

His fit of insensibility, however, did not last long--the latent
consciousness of responsibility effectually prevented that; and he was
soon able to rise and stagger to the pilot-house.  Once there, he
forthwith made his way below and availed himself of the stimulus
afforded by a glass of neat brandy, after which he felt equal to the
task which yet lay before him.  Having swallowed the brandy, he at once
returned to the deck and shifted the rope-ladder over to the larboard
gangway.  He then looked about him to ascertain the whereabouts of the
ship, which he found to be about half a mile distant from the spot where
he had left his friends, and gradually drifting further away under the
influence of a gentle night-breeze which had just sprung up--thus
proving indubitably that, had he not reached the craft when he did, she
would probably have been lost to them all for ever.  Having attached the
ladder securely, Mildmay next entered the pilot-house, and--night having
by this time completely fallen--turned on the electric lights; after
which he set the engines in motion and returned to the side of the
mountain in search of the two companions he had left clinging in so
dangerous a situation.  These were found just as he had left them, and
were speedily taken on board--they too being completely overcome by the
revulsion of feeling following upon their rescue.

A glass of brandy each quickly revived them, however, and then they
devoted their united energies to a search for the baronet.  With some
little difficulty the scene of the accident was discovered; and a minute
or two later Sir Reginald was observed, not dead, as they had feared to
find him, but sitting up on the snow-bank upon which he had fallen, a
prisoner to the spot, from the fact that there was no possible way of
retreat from it either upward or downward; but in other respects very
little the worse for his terrible fall, the snow, happily, proving so
deep that it served as a cushion or buffer, allowing the baronet to
escape with only a few somewhat severe bruises.  The adventure being
thus happily terminated, the ship was quickly navigated to the berth she
had occupied on the preceding night; and the party then sat down to
dinner, over which meal they came to the conclusion that they had had
enough mountain-climbing that day to suffice them for the remainder of
their lives.



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

THE FOUNDERING OF THE "MERCURY."

The nerves of the adventurers were so shaken by the vicissitudes of
their day's adventure that they found it impossible to obtain sound and
refreshing sleep that night, notwithstanding their terrible fatigue;
their slumbers were broken by horrible dreams, and further disturbed by
the cries of wild beasts of various descriptions which kept the forest
in a perfect uproar the whole night long.  So great, indeed, was the
disturbance from the latter cause, that, on comparing notes over the
breakfast table next morning, the party came to the conclusion that they
must be in a district literally swarming with big game, and that it
might be worth their while to spend a few days there hunting.  This they
did; with such success that their stay was prolonged for nearly a month,
by which time they had collected such a quantity of skins, horns, tusks,
skulls, and other trophies of the chase that even they, inveterate
sportsmen as they were, acknowledged themselves satisfied.  The
professor, meanwhile, had devoted himself enthusiastically to the
forming of a collection of rare birds, beetles, and butterflies, in
which pursuit he had been fully as successful as his companions in
theirs; so that when the time came for them to leave this delightful
spot they did so in the highest possible state of health and spirits;
the remembrance of their ugly adventure on Everest disturbing them no
more than would the memory of a troublesome dream.

Their next destination was the island of Borneo; and they arranged their
departure so as to pass over Calcutta and enter the Bay of Bengal during
the hours of darkness, their intention being to make the latter part of
the trip by water rather than by air.

They descended to the surface of the sea at daylight, the land being at
that time invisible from the elevation of ten thousand feet at which
they had been travelling during the night.  Not a sail of any
description was in sight; the sparkling sea was only moderately ruffled
by the north-east monsoon; and appearances seemed to warrant a belief
that the passage would be a thoroughly pleasant one.  The travellers
were in no hurry whatever, and they were, moreover, longing for a sniff
of the good wholesome sea-breeze; the _Flying Fish_ therefore proceeded
very leisurely on her course, her engines revolving dead slow, which
gave her a speed of about sixteen knots through the water.

They proceeded thus during the whole of that day and the succeeding
night, finding themselves at daybreak next morning within sight of one
of the lesser islands of the Andaman group.  And at this point of their
journey a gradual fall of the mercury in their barometers warned them
that they were about to experience a change of weather.  The atmospheric
indications remained unchanged, however, until about two o'clock in the
afternoon, when the wind lulled, the mercury experienced a sudden
further fall, and a great mass of murky cloud began to bank up in the
south-western quarter.  This rapidly overspread the sky, until the whole
of the visible heavens became obscured by a thick curtain of flying
scud.  The sea, inky black, suddenly became agitated, and formed itself
into a confusion of irregular waves without any "run," but which reared
themselves tremblingly aloft, and then subsided again, only to be
instantly succeeded by others.  The wind fell away to a dead calm, which
continued for about a quarter of an hour, during which an alarmingly
rapid fall of the mercury, combined with a low weird moaning in the
atmosphere, seemed to forebode the approach of some dire disaster.  This
was followed by a sudden blast of wind from the eastward--which came and
was gone again in an instant--and which preceded a brief but terrific
downpour of rain.  This lasted for perhaps three minutes, when it ceased
as suddenly as it had commenced.

"Now, look out for the wind," exclaimed Mildmay.  "Ah! here it comes--a
regular hurricane!  Thank Heaven, there is no sail to shorten on board
the _Flying Fish_!"

He might well say so; for sore indeed would be the plight of the unwary
seaman who should find himself under similar circumstances, unprepared.
A long line of white foam suddenly appeared on their starboard bow,
racing down toward them and spreading out right and left with frightful
rapidity, until the whole horizon, from some four points on the larboard
bow right round to broad on their starboard beam, was marked by a
continuous line of flying foam and spindrift.  They watched with eager
curiosity this remarkable phenomenon, noticed the astounding rapidity
with which it travelled, and saw that the sea on their starboard hand,
ay, and even well on their starboard quarter, was lashed into a perfect
frenzy by the hurricane before it reached the ship.  Then, with a wild
rush and a deafening roar, the gale struck them, and the _Flying Fish_--
stout ship as she was--fairly shuddered under the force of the blow.  In
an instant the air became so thick with the driving scud-water that
every window in the pilot-house had to be closed to prevent the inmates
being drenched to the skin.  In less than five minutes the deck was wet
fore and aft with the flying spray; and before a quarter of an hour had
elapsed the _Flying Fish_ was pitching her fore-deck clean under water.

At its commencement the gale blew from about south-east, or dead in
their teeth; and the revolutions of the engines were increased to a rate
which, under ordinary circumstances, would have given the ship a speed
of some twenty-five knots, but which now drove her ahead at the rate of
only some fifteen knots against the gale.  As the afternoon wore on, the
wind gradually "backed," until, at four p.m., it was blowing from due
south.  This confirmed Mildmay in his suspicion that they had fallen in
with one of those most terrible of storms--_a cyclone_!

At half-past four o'clock--at which time the gale was raging with
hurricane force--a sail was made out, bearing about one point on the
_Flying Fish's_ port bow, and about four miles distant.  As well as
could be made out, she appeared to be barque-rigged; and, on approaching
her more closely, this proved to be the case.  She was a vessel of some
four hundred tons register, pretty deep in the water; and--though she
was hove-to under close-reefed fore and main topsails--was making
frightfully bad weather of it, the seas sweeping clear and clean over
her, fore and aft, every time she met them.

The moment that the stranger was first sighted, Mildmay opened one of
the windows--at the risk of getting drenched to the skin--and brought a
telescope to bear upon her.  He had scarcely brought her within the
field of vision when he exclaimed agitatedly:

"Good Heavens! what is the man about?  He has hove-to his ship _on the
port tack_; does he not know he is in a cyclone?"

"What does it matter which tack the vessel is hove-to upon?" asked Sir
Reginald with a smile at Mildmay's excitement.

"All the difference in the world, my dear sir," was the reply.  "We are
in the Northern Hemisphere; in which--as you have already had an
opportunity of observing--cyclones _invariably_ revolve _against_ the
apparent course of the sun.  A knowledge of this fact teaches the wary
seaman to heave-to on the _starboard_ tack; by doing which his ship
dodges _away from_ the fatal centre or `eye' of the storm.  This fellow,
however, by heaving-to on the port tack, is steadily nearing the centre,
which must eventually pass over him, when his ship will be suddenly
becalmed, only to be struck aback a few moments later, when she will--
almost to a dead certainty--founder with all hands.  For Heaven's sake
let us bear down upon him and warn him ere it be too late.  And we have
no time to lose about it either; for, if I may judge from the fury of
the gale, the centre of the storm is not far off."

The speed of the _Flying Fish_ was promptly increased, her course being
at the same time so far altered as to admit of her intercepting the
barque, and a few minutes later she passed under the stranger's stern
and hauled close up on her weather quarter, the travellers thus having
an opportunity of ascertaining the name of the vessel, which proved to
be the _Mercury_ of Bristol.  They were now also able to realise more
fully than they had yet the tremendous strength of the gale and power of
the sea; the unfortunate barque careening gunwale-to under the pressure
of the wind upon her scanty canvas, whilst the sea deluged her decks
fore and aft; the whole of her lee and a considerable portion of her
weather bulwarks having already been carried away, together with her
spare spars; whilst every sea which broke on board her swept something
or other off the deck and into the sea to leeward.  The long-boat and
pinnace, stowed over the main hatchway, were stove and rendered
unserviceable; and, even as the _Flying Fish_ ranged up alongside, their
destruction was completed and their shattered planks and timbers torn
out of the "gripes."  The crew of the ship had, for safety's sake,
assembled aft on the full poop; and among them could be seen a female
figure crouching down under the meagre shelter of the cabin skylight
evidently in a state of extreme terror.

"You go out and hail them, Mildmay; you know what to say," remarked Sir
Reginald, as he steered the _Flying Fish_ into a favourable position for
communicating.

The lieutenant needed no second bidding; he felt that the crisis was
imminent; and, stepping out on deck, where he had to cling tightly to
the lee guard-rail to escape being washed overboard, he hailed:

"Barque ahoy! do you know that you are in a cyclone, and hove-to on the
wrong tack?  I would very strongly advise you to wear round at once and
get the ship on the starboard tack.  If the eye of the storm catches you
you will surely founder."

To his intense astonishment an answer came back--from a great black-
bearded savage-looking fellow--couched in the words, as nearly as he
could make them out for the howling of the wind and the rush of the sea:

"You mind your own business!  Nobody on board this ship wants your
advice."

"But I am giving it you for your own safety's sake, and that of the
ship," persisted Mildmay.

The answer was unintelligible, but, as it was accompanied by an
impatient wave of the hand and a turning of the speaker's back upon him,
Mildmay rightly concluded that the individual was one of those
obstinate, pig-headed people, who, having once made a mistake, will
persist in it at all hazards rather than take advice, and so admit the
possibility of their having done wrong; he accordingly turned away
somewhat disgusted, and made his way back to the shelter of the pilot-
house.

The lieutenant was in the act of describing to his companions the
unsatisfactory nature of the foregoing brief colloquy, when
suddenly--_instantaneously_--there occurred an awful pause in the fury
of the hurricane; the wind lulled at once to a dead calm; the air
cleared; the sea, no longer thrashed down by the gale, reared itself
aloft as though it would scale the very heavens; and the canvas of the
barque flapped with a single loud thunderous report as she rolled
heavily to windward.

"Now, look out!" gasped Mildmay.  And, even as the words escaped his
lips, down came the hurricane again in a sudden mad burst of relentless
fury; but _now_ the wind blew from the _northward_, the point of the
compass exactly opposite that from which it had been blowing a minute
before.

The _Flying Fish_, having neither sails nor spars exposed to the blast,
received this second stroke of the gale with impunity; but with the
devoted barque it was, alas, very different.  She was struck flat aback
and borne irresistibly over on her beam-ends, gathering stern-way at the
same time.  The crew, at last fully alive to the extreme peril of their
situation, scrambled along the deck and made their way to the braces in
a futile attempt to haul round the yards, the helmsman at the same time
jamming the wheel hard down that the ship might have a chance to pay
off.  The yards, however, were jammed fast against the weather rigging,
and could not be moved; neither would the ship's head pay off;
meanwhile, her stern-way was rapidly increasing, the sea already foaming
up level with her taffrail; and presently it curled in over her lee
quarter, sweeping in a steadily increasing volume along her deck.  The
catastrophe which followed took place with startling rapidity.  The
stern of the barque, now buried beneath the surge, seemed at once to
lose all its buoyancy, and, powerfully depressed by the leverage of the
topsails on the masts, plunged at once deeply below the surface of the
hungrily leaping sea, the rest of the hull following so quickly that,
before the horrified spectators in the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house fully
realised what was happening, the entire hull had disappeared, the masts,
yards, and top-hamper generally only remaining in sight a moment longer,
as though to impress upon them unmistakably the fact that a ship was
foundering before their eyes.

"Come back and close the door!" thundered Sir Reginald to Mildmay,
laying his hand upon certain valve-handles as the lieutenant sprang out
on deck, urged by some indefinite purpose of rendering help where help
was obviously no longer possible.

Mildmay stood for a moment, as one in a dream, watching the submergence
of the ill-fated _Mercury's_ jib-boom end and fore-topgallant mast-head
(the last of her spars to disappear) beneath the swirl where her hull
had just vanished, and then, dazedly, he obeyed the baronet's sharply
reiterated command.

No sooner did the door clang to than Sir Reginald rapidly threw open all
the valves of the water chambers, and the _Flying Fish_ at once began to
follow the barque to the bottom.  In less than five seconds the
travellers found themselves clear of all the wild commotion raging on
the surface, and descending silently, rapidly, yet steadily deeper and
deeper into the recesses of the cool twilight which prevailed around
them, deepest blue below and an ever-darkening green above.  They
quickly overtook the _Mercury_ and continued the descent almost side by
side with her, watching, with awe-struck curiosity yet overwhelming pity
and horror, the death-struggles of those who were being helplessly
dragged down with her.  They observed, with a feeling of intense relief,
that the struggle for life ceased, in almost every case, in less than a
minute, the expression of horror on the dying men's faces passing away
still earlier and giving place to one of profound peace and contentment;
thus confirming, to a great extent the current belief that death by
drowning is a painless mode of dissolution.

The crew had, without exception, at the moment of the barque's
foundering, grasped some rope or other portion of the vessel's
equipment, the death-clutch upon which was in no single instance
relaxed; hence they were, one and all, dragged hopelessly to the bottom
with the wreck.  With the female, however, it was different.  She had
been crouching in a kneeling attitude upon the deck, under the imperfect
shelter of the cabin skylight, and when the poop deck became submerged
she was swept forward, still in the same attitude, with her hands
clasped as in prayer, until her body was washed clear of the poop rail,
when the suction of the sinking ship dragged her below the surface.  As
the hull of the barque settled down it gradually recovered its balance
and assumed an almost level position, due, to some extent, no doubt, to
the pressure of the water upon the sails; and, with every fathom of
descent, the downward motion grew increasingly slower.  The wreck had
sunk to a depth of perhaps twenty or five-and-twenty fathoms, when the
absorbed spectators in the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house were startled by
observing a sudden convulsive motion in the body of the female.  Her
hands were unclasped, her arms were flung wildly out above her head, and
her body was slowly straightened out.  At the same moment the space
between her and the sinking wreck widened; the vessel was sinking more
rapidly than the body.  The descent of the _Flying Fish_ was instantly
checked, and in another moment it became apparent that the body _was
rising to the surface_.

In eager, breathless anxiety the watchers noted the steady downward
progress of the _Mercury's_ spars and cordage past the now struggling
form of the woman, victims of alternate dismay and hope as they saw the
body now fouled by some portion of the complicated net-work of standing
and running gear between the main and mizzen masts, and anon drifting
clear of it again.  A few seconds, which to the quartette in the pilot-
house seemed spun out to the duration of ages, and the last of these
perils was evaded, upon which the body, still feebly struggling, resumed
its upward journey.

With a great sigh of intense relief, echoed by each of his companions,
Sir Reginald swiftly backed the _Flying Fish_ astern, causing her at the
same time, by a movement of the tiller, to swerve with her bow directly
toward the body, now some five or six feet above the level of the deck.
Then, quick as thought, the ship was sent ahead until her deck was
immediately beneath the body, when, the valves of the air and water
chambers being simultaneously thrown open, she rushed upward to the
surface, overtaking the drowning woman and carrying her upward also.

In another instant, a vacuum having been created in the air-chambers,
the _Flying Fish_ broke water with a tremendous rush and swirl, and,
without a moment's pause, rose into the air, the senseless body on deck
being prevented from washing off again only by the guard-rail which
stood in place of bulwarks.

"Take charge, please, and do not rise too high," hurriedly exclaimed the
baronet to Mildmay, springing, as he spoke, for the door of the pilot-
house, which he flung open, rushing out on deck and seizing the body as
though fearful that it might yet be snatched away from him.

Gently raising it in his arms he turned and bore the slender form to the
shelter of the pilot-house, at the door of which he was met by the
professor, who felt that his medical skill might yet perhaps serve the
unfortunate girl in good stead.  Together they conveyed her below to one
of the state-rooms, and, without a moment's loss of time, the most
approved methods of resuscitation were vigorously resorted to.  For
fully half an hour their utmost efforts proved all unavailing; but von
Schalckenberg so positively asserted life was not extinct that they
persevered, and at length a slight return of warmth to the body and
colour to the lips, followed by a fluttering sigh, assured them that
success was about to reward their endeavours.  Another minute, and a
pair of glorious brown eyes were disclosed by their opening lids, a
faint moan escaped the quivering lips, the head moved uneasily upon the
pillow, and the sufferer murmured a few inarticulate words.

"Thank God, we have saved her, I believe," ejaculated Sir Reginald, in a
whisper, to the professor.  "Now, doctor, I will retire and leave you to
complete her restoration, so that the poor girl may be spared
embarrassment as far as possible on the full recovery of consciousness.
But I shall establish myself outside the door of the state-room, within
easy reach of your voice should you need anything; and do not forget
that the whole resources of the ship are at your absolute disposal."

"All right," answered the professor.  "Now go, for the patient is coming
to herself rapidly."

Half an hour later von Schalckenberg crept out on tiptoe, his kindly
face beaming and his eyes sparkling with exultation.

"It is all right," he whispered in his broadest German-English.  "I have
fully restored the circulation, and the young patient is now in a sound
sleep, from which she must not be disturbed on any account.  I shall
keep watch by her side, and when she awakes you shall all be duly
informed of the circumstance.  You may now go about your business, my
good friend, your services are no longer required here."

The worthy professor kept sedulous watch over his patient until
satisfied that she was completely out of danger, presenting her to his
companions only when they assembled in the saloon for dinner some four-
and-twenty hours after the catastrophe which had thrown her into their
society.

The colonel and Mildmay were stricken absolutely, though only
temporarily, dumb with astonishment and admiration at the vision of
remarkable beauty which met their gaze as the saloon door opened, and
von Schalckenberg, stepping hastily forward with a most courtly bow, met
the fair stranger at the threshold, taking her hand and leading her
forward into the apartment preliminary to the ceremony of introduction.
Even Sir Reginald, though he had not failed to notice the beauty of the
pale and apparently lifeless girl he had raised from the wet deck and
borne so carefully below on the preceding evening, was startled at her
radiant loveliness as she, somewhat shrinkingly and with a momentary
vivid blush, responded to the introductions and congratulatory greetings
which immediately followed.  All night long, and throughout the day, she
had been haunted by the dreamy recollection of another face than that of
the kindly professor who had so assiduously nursed her back to life--a
bronzed handsome face, with tender pitiful blue eyes, close-cut auburn
hair clustering wavily about the small shapely head, and luxuriant
auburn moustache and beard, bending anxiously over her as she lay weak,
helpless, suffering, and with the feebly-returning consciousness of
having recently experienced some terrible calamity; of having passed
through some awful and harrowing ordeal; and now, as she gave her hand
to Sir Reginald, and shyly glanced up into his handsome face and read
the tender sympathy for her expressed by the kindly blue eyes, she
recognised the embodiment of the vision which had haunted her so
persistently, and knew that she had not been merely dreaming.  The
circumstances in which she thus found herself placed were certainly
somewhat embarrassing; but, with the tact of a true gentleman, Sir
Reginald at once led the conversation into a channel which soon made the
poor girl forget her embarrassment, and almost immediately afterwards
the party sat down to dinner.

During the progress of this meal--which, however, their guest scarcely
tasted--the gentlemen were made aware of the circumstances which led to
this lovely girl being thrown, helpless and friendless, into their
society and upon their hospitality.

Her name, she informed them, was Olivia D'Arcy.  She was an orphan.  Her
brother, formerly a lieutenant in the royal navy, had been compelled by
straitened circumstances to quit the service and enter the mercantile
marine, in which he had without much difficulty succeeded in securing a
command.  By practising the most rigid economy he had contrived to
maintain his only sister, Olivia, and educate her at a first-class
school, and on her education being completed he had decided, as the
simplest way out of many difficulties, financial and otherwise, to take
her to sea with him.  This had been her first voyage with him, as it had
been his first in command of the _Mercury_.  The ship had been to
Manilla, and at the time of her loss was homeward-bound, with
instructions to call at Madras _en route_.  The voyage had been an
unfortunate one in many respects, even from its commencement, and Olivia
thought the climax had been reached when, a week before her wreck, the
_Mercury_ had been attacked by pirates in the Straits of Malacca, and
her brother slain by the pirates' last shot, as they retired defeated.
The cruel shot, she declared in a burst of uncontrollable grief, had
robbed her, in her brother, of her sole relative; and whilst she was
deeply grateful to those she addressed for preserving her life, she felt
that it would perhaps have been better for her had she been allowed to
perish.

Such a story was calculated to excite the deepest sympathy and
commiseration in the breasts of those who listened to it; and it did; in
Sir Reginald's case, indeed, the feeling was even warmer than either of
those mentioned, especially when he learned, upon further inquiry, that
Olivia's brother had been none other than the George D'Arcy who, in the
days of their mutual boyhood, had fought many a battle on his behalf at
Eton when certain first-form bullies had shown a disposition to
tyrannise over the then delicate curly-headed "Miss Reggie" (as
Elphinstone was dubbed when he first entered the school), and the
sorrowing girl was assured that, so far from being friendless, she would
find in her then companions four men upon whom she might always rely for
the warmest sympathy, the most kindly counsel, and the most substantial
help so long as their lives might last.

The accession of such a guest as Olivia D'Arcy to the little party on
board the _Flying Fish_ occasioned, it will readily be understood, a
complete and immediate change in all their plans.  In the first moment
that they gave to the consideration of the matter they saw that it would
never do for a young, beautiful, and unprotected girl to accompany them
hither and thither in their wanderings, even were she willing to do so,
which they felt well assured she would not be.  Two alternatives then
presented themselves to the choice of the party: the one being to land
her at the nearest port, and, furnishing her with the necessary means,
leave her to make her way to England alone and unprotected as best she
could; the other alternative involving the temporary abandonment of
their further projects and the immediate return of the _Flying Fish_ to
England.  The first project was named only to be abruptly and
unanimously rejected by the entire party, the second being gladly
adopted by Sir Reginald upon his receiving from his three friends the
assurance of their hearty approval and acquiescence.

This decision was arrived at shortly before midnight on the evening
following Olivia's formal introduction by the professor to the remaining
members of the party, and thereupon--the _Flying Fish_ being at the time
afloat and making her way leisurely southward toward the Straits of
Malacca--an ascent to the upper regions of the atmosphere was at once
made, and the ship's head pointed homeward.  The distance to be
traversed was considerable, but it was calculated that by travelling at
the ship's utmost speed along the arc of a great circle (the shortest
possible route between any two places on the earth's surface), the
journey might be accomplished in about forty-five hours, which, allowing
for the difference of longitude in time between their then position and
the English Channel, would enable them to reach the latter place at
about two o'clock in the afternoon of the day but one following.  This
was rather an awkward time, if they still intended to maintain their
secrecy of movement and avoid observation, but under the circumstances
they resolved to risk it.  Soaring, therefore, to a height of ten
thousand feet--the elevation which experience had taught them to be most
suitable for the performance of long-distance journeys--the _Flying
Fish_ was put to her utmost speed, and, with the gentlemen keeping watch
by turns in the pilot-house, the journey was commenced.

Swiftly the wonderful fabric sped forward upon her homeward way, and,
without incident of any kind worthy of mention, and almost at the very
minute calculated upon, the waters of the English Channel were sighted;
an unobserved descent being effected some twenty miles seaward of the
little town of Saint Valery on the French coast.  A course was now
shaped for the Isle of Wight, and, a few hours later, one of the boats
belonging to the _Flying Fish_ quietly glided into Portsmouth harbour in
charge of Lieutenant Mildmay.  Three passengers--Olivia D'Arcy, the
professor, and Colonel Lethbridge--landed from her without attracting
any attention, and found themselves just in good time to take the London
express, which they did, Mildmay making his solitary way out of the
harbour again immediately.

In accordance with arrangements previously made by Sir Reginald, Miss
D'Arcy was escorted by her two cavaliers straight to the town residence
of a certain aunt of the baronet's, and handed over to the care and
protection of the old lady, with whom (to make short of a long story)
for the ensuing twelve months she found a most comfortable and happy
home; Sir Reginald and Mildmay turning up in town two days later laden
with their African spoils, the equitable division of which, and their
ultimate disposal, occupied the party for several months.

Thus ended the cruise of the _Flying Fish_.  What remains to be told may
be said in a very few words.  Will the sagacious reader be very much
surprised to learn that Sir Reginald Elphinstone suddenly discovered, in
the aunt who had kindly taken Olivia D'Arcy under her protection, an old
lady whose good graces were worth the most assiduous cultivation?  Such,
at all events, was the fact, and, this much having been stated, the
aforesaid sagacious reader will perhaps be not altogether unprepared to
learn that, about a year after the return of the _Flying Fish_ to
England, a wedding took place from that old lady's house; in which
ceremony Olivia enacted most charmingly the part of bride, with Sir
Reginald as bridegroom, supported by the three staunch friends who had
shared with him so many perils.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And what about the _Flying Fish_, does somebody ask?  When last heard of
she was--where she probably still is--lying safe and unsuspected at the
bottom of the "Hurd Deep," in the identical spot where she made her
first descent into the waters of the English Channel.

Whether she will ever again be put into commission--and, if so, under
what circumstances--time alone will show.

THE END.






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