red with maps, plans and
drawings of localities terrestrial and celestial.

The aerogram passed round and Mr Parmenter continued: "You see,
gentlemen, although the United States has the friendliest of feelings
towards the British Empire, still, as the President told me the day
before yesterday, this invasion of Britain is not our fight, and he does
not see his way to making formal declaration of war; so he just gave me
a permit for these ships to leave American territory on what the
Russians and others call a scientific expedition in order to explore the
upper regions of the air and demonstrate the possibility of navigating
the air without using gas as lifting power--and that's just how we've
got here with our clearance papers and so on all in order; and that
means, gentlemen, that we are here, not as citizens of the United States
or any other country, but just as a trading company with something to
hire out.

"John Castellan, as you will remember from what has been said, sold his
_Flying Fishes_ to the German Emperor. Mr Lennard has proved to us by
Castellan's own handwriting that he is prepared to sell them back to the
British Government at a certain price--and that price is my daughter.
Our answer to that is the hiring of our fleet to the British Government,
and that offer has been accepted on terms which I think will show a very
fair profit when the war is over and we've saved the world."

"I don't think it will take very long to stop the war," said the creator
of the aerial battle-fleet, in his quiet voice. "Saving the world is, of
course, another matter which no doubt we can leave safely in the hands
of Mr Lennard. And now," he continued more gravely, "when is the news of
the actual coming of the comet to be made public? It seems to me that
everything more or less hangs upon that. The German Emperor, and,
therefore, his Allies and, no doubt, half the astronomers of Europe,
have been informed of Mr Lennard's discovery. They may or may not
believe it, and if they don't we can't blame them because it was only
given to them without exact detail."

"And a very good thing too," laughed Lennard, "considering the eccentric
way in which the comet is behaving. But everything is settled now,
unless, of course, some other mysterious influence gets to work; and,
another thing, it's quite certain that before many days the comet must
be discovered by other observatories."

"Then, Mr Lennard," said Mr Parmenter, "we've been