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 th