y slowly up the
steps, at the top of which his host and hostess awaited him.

The newcomer was Cyril Lethbridge, late a colonel in the Royal
Engineers, but now retired from the service. He had been a successful
gold-seeker in his time, a mighty hunter, a daring explorer--in short,
an adventurer, in the highest and least generally accepted form of the
term. He had also been one of the quartette of adventurous spirits who
formed the working crew of the _Flying Fish_ in her first two
extraordinary cruises, and was therefore an old and staunch comrade of
Sir Reginald Elphinstone, and an equally staunch, though more recent,
friend of Lady Elphinstone, whose acquaintance he had first made some
six years before under startling and extraordinary circumstances. He
was a man in the very prime of life; tall, and with a very fair share of
good looks--although certainly not so handsome a man as his friend the
baronet--upright as a dart, and, when in his normal state of health,
singularly robust of frame; but now, as he slowly mounted the broad, yet
easy, flight of steps, there was a perceptible languor of movement and a
general gauntness of visage and figure that told an unmistakable tale of
very recent illness. Nevertheless, his eye was bright, and his voice
strong and cheery, as he returned the greetings of his friends on the
terrace, and replied to their inquiries as to his comfort during the
long journey from town.

"But where is Mildmay?" inquired Sir Reginald at length, as the party
turned to enter the house. "How is it that he is not with you?"

"He is with von Schalckenberg," answered the colonel. "When we met last
night at the Migrants', to make our final arrangements for to-day, we
came to the conclusion that for the professor to go alone in search of
the _Flying Fish_ would entail upon him a great deal of unnecessary
trouble and labour--although von Schalckenberg himself would not admit
it--and therefore Mildmay determined to accompany him. So they arranged
to meet at Waterloo this morning, and to run down to Portsmouth by the
eleven fifteen, which is a fast train, you know; and I have no doubt
that they are at this moment engaged in getting the bearings of the
_Flying Fish_, in readiness to descend to her as soon as the darkness
has set in sufficiently to conceal their movements from too curious
eyes. And if the staunch old craft is in the perfect condition that von
Schalckenberg anticipates, we shall probably