n the necessary
equipment."

Von Helmuth nodded, and the adjutant stepped to the door and called out:
"Lieutenant Muenster!"

A trim young man in naval uniform appeared upon the threshold and
saluted.

"State what you regard as necessary as equipment for the proposed
expedition," said the general.

"Twenty motor boats, each capable of towing several flat-bottomed barges
or native canoes, forty mules, a field telegraph, and also a
high-powered wireless apparatus, axes, spades, wire cables and drums,
windlasses, dynamite for blasting, and provisions for sixty days. We
shall live off the country and secure artisans and bearers from among
the natives."

"When will it be possible to start?" inquired the general.

"In twelve days if you give the order now," answered the young man.

"Very well, you may go. And good luck to you!" he added.

The young lieutenant saluted and turned abruptly on his heel.

Over the parade ground a biplane was hovering, darting this way and
that, rising and falling with startling velocity.

"Who's that?" inquired the general approvingly.

"Schoeningen," answered the adjutant.

The Imperial Commissioner felt in his breast-pocket for another cigar.

"Do you know, Ludwig," he remarked amiably as he struck a meditative
match, "sometimes I more than half believe this 'Flying Ring' business
is all rot!"

The adjutant looked pained.

"And yet," continued Von Helmuth, "if Bismarck could see one of those
things," he waved his cigar toward the gyrating aeroplane, "he wouldn't
believe it."

X

All day the International Assembly of Scientists, officially known as
Conference No. 2, had been sitting, but not progressing, in the large
lecture hall of the Smithsonian Institution, which probably had never
before seen so motley a gathering. Each nation had sent three
representatives, two professional scientists, and a lay delegate, the
latter some writer or thinker renowned in his own country for his wide
knowledge and powers of ratiocination. They had come together upon the
appointed day, although the delegates from the remoter countries had not
yet arrived, and the Committee on Credentials had already reported.
Germany had sent Gasgabelaus, Leybach, and Wilhelm Lamszus;
France--Sortell, Amand, and Buona Varilla; Great Britain--Sir William
Crookes, Sir Francis Soddy, and Mr. H. G. Wells, celebrated for his "The
War of the Worlds" and The "World Set Free," and hence supposedly just
the