ng at
a strength of about twenty miles an hour.

"That," he remarked, "is a dead fair wind for us, and will enable us to
progress at the rate of one hundred and forty miles an hour over the
ground, if we proceed at full speed, and we shall therefore--Stop a
moment; I must work this out on paper."

He drew an envelope from his pocket and proceeded to make a few rapid
calculations upon it.

"Yes," he resumed at length, as he ran over his figures a second time,
"that is right. If we start at midnight we shall--assuming the wind to
hold all the way as it is now--overtake the convict-ship about half-past
six o'clock to-morrow morning at a point, say, one hundred and
sixty-five miles south of Odessa, which is practically halfway across
the Black Sea. The time and place are both suitable, and I do not think
that we can do better."

As this was essentially a point for a sailor to decide, the other
members of the party at once fell in with this virtual proposal of
Mildmay's, and it was forthwith agreed, without further discussion, that
a start should be made at midnight. The men then rose and joined the
ladies in the drawing-room, or music-room, as the apartment was
indifferently called.

This music-room was a most noble chamber, both as to dimensions and
appearance, being the largest room in the ship. It was situated
immediately abaft the dining-saloon, from which access to it was gained.
It was, however, a much larger apartment than the other, being, like
the dining-saloon, the full width of the ship, and forty feet in length
between the fore and after bulkheads, its height being ten feet to the
lower edge of the massive and richly moulded cornice from which sprang
the coved and panelled ceiling. The walls were divided up into panels
by a series of fluted pilasters surmounted by elegantly and fancifully
moulded capitals upon which rested the above-mentioned cornice.
Centrally between the pilasters, the side walls of the apartment were
pierced with circular ports, or windows, about eighteen inches in
diameter, glazed with plate-glass of enormous thickness that had been
specially toughened, by a process invented by the professor, to enable
it to withstand the terrific pressure to which it would be subjected
when the ship should be submerged to great depths in the ocean. The
frames of these ports consisted of foliated wreaths of polished
aethereum, presenting the appearance of burnished silver, and were
exceedingly d