ted at intervals of twenty minutes. The professor was
causing the ship to make the long, circular sweep of which he had spoken
to Sir Reginald a few hours earlier.

At length, as the lonely scientist sat there in the pilot-house, plunged
in deep thought, and mechanically performing the simple operations
necessary to enable him to alter the course of the ship from time to
time, the mirror-like discs of the scuttles in the walls of the
pilot-house gradually underwent a subtle change of colour--from deepest
black, through an infinite variety of shades of grey, to a pure, rich
blue which, in its turn, merged into a delicate primrose hue, while the
incandescent lamp in the dome-like roof of the structure as gradually
lost its radiance until it became a mere white-hot thread in the growing
flood of cold morning light. Meanwhile the moment arrived for a further
alteration in the course of the ship; and as the professor rose to his
feet to effect it he realised that not only had the day broken, but also
the sun was about to rise, for long, spoke-like shafts of clear white
light were radiating upward into the blue from a point broad on the
starboard bow.

As he realised this, he reached forward, turned a button, and the
glowing film of the electric lamp overhead dulled into blackness and
disappeared.

Then, stepping to one of the scuttles, the professor looked out through
the thick disc of plate-glass, and beheld a sight of beauty that is
given only to the adventurous few to look upon--a sea of dense, opaque,
fleecy cloud, white as the driven snow in the high lights, with its
irregular surface, some sixteen hundred feet below, broken up into a
thousand tender, delicate, pearly shadows that came and went, and
momentarily changed their tints as the _Flying Fish_ swept over them at
a speed of one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed the professor, as he gazed forth upon the wondrous
sight. "Good! I expected as much. Now we are safe from observation so
long as this cloud-bank intervenes between us and the earth; when it
passes away we must--But what am I thinking about? The sun is about to
rise. I must call her ladyship, and my little friend Feodorovna--it
will be far too splendid a sight for them to lose!"

So saying the worthy man turned and hurried down the staircase toward
what may be termed the main, or principal, deck of the ship. As he
descended he became aware of the sound of gay voices, male a