he rush of
the wind, and just forward of the mast was an oval conning-tower, not
unlike that of the _Ithuriel_, only, of course, unarmoured, from which
everything connected with the working of the ship could be controlled by
a single man.

Such is a brief description of the Aerial Fleet which rose from the
slopes of the Alleghanies at ten o'clock on the night of the fourteenth
of March 1910, and winged its way silently and without lights eastward
across the invisible waters of the Atlantic.

There is one other point in Mr Parmenter's cablegram to Lennard which
may as well be explained here. He had, of course, confided everything
that he knew, not only about the war, but also about the approaching
World Peril and the means that were being taken to combat it, to his
partner on his first arrival in the States, and had also given him a
copy of Lennard's calculations.

Instantly Mr Max Henchell's patriotic ambition was fired. Mr Lennard had
mentioned that Tom Bowcock, Lennard's general manager, had proposed to
christen the great gun the "Bolton Baby." He had spent that night in
calculations of differences of latitude and longitude, time, angles of
inclination of the axis of the orbit, points and times of orbital
intersection worked out from the horizon of Pittsburg, and when he had
finished he solemnly asked himself the momentous question: Why should
this world-saving business be left to England alone? After all the
"Bolton Baby" might miss fire by a second or two. If it was going to be
a matter of comet-shooting, what had America done that she could not
have a gun? Were there not hundreds of eligible shafts to be bought
round Pittsburg? Yes, America should have that gun, if the last dollar
he possessed or could raise by fair means or foul was to be thrown down
the bore of it.

And so America had the gun, and therefore in after days the rival of the
"Bolton Baby" came to be called the "Pittsburg Prattler."

CHAPTER XXXI

JOHN CASTELLAN'S THREAT

Lennard's first feelings after the receipt of Mr Parmenter's cablegram,
and the casting of the vast mass of metal which was to form the body of
the great cannon, were those of doubt and hesitation, mingled, possibly,
with that sense of semi-irresponsibility which will for a time overcome
the most highly-disciplined mind when some great task has been completed
for the time being.

For a full month nothing could be done to the cannon, since it would
take quite that t