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