st abruptly into another vast spread of lights. But as
they approached this did not extend any farther, but lay cut off
sharp by a long, curving line of almost complete darkness.

"Brighton . . . the sea . . . And there's the tender waiting."

At first the prelate could not make it out against the radiance
below, but an instant later, as they rushed on, it loomed up,
sudden and enormous, itself blazing with lights against the dark
sea. It looked to him something like a floating stage, outlined
with fire; and there were glimmering, perpendicular lines beneath
it which he could not understand, running down to lose themselves
in the misty glow three hundred feet beneath.

"How's it done?" he asked.

"It's a platform, charged of course with _aeroline_. It runs on
lines straight up from the stage beneath, and keeps itself steady
with screws. You'll see it go down after we've left again. Come
to the stern, we shall see better from there."

By the time that they had reached the other end of the ship, the
pace had rapidly diminished almost to motionlessness; and as soon
as Monsignor could attend again, he perceived that there was
sliding at a footpace past their starboard side the edge of the
huge platform that he had seen just now half a mile away. For a
moment or two it swayed up and down; there was a slight vibration;
and then he heard voices and the trampling of footsteps.

"The bridges are fixed," remarked the priest. "They're on the
lower deck, of course. Pretty prompt, aren't they?"

The prelate stood, staring with all his eyes; now at the
motionless platform that hung alongside, now at the gulf below
with the fairy lights strewed like stars and _nebulae_ at its
bottom. It seemed impossible to realize that this station in the
air was not the normal level, and the earth not a strange foreign
body that attended on it. There came up on deck presently a dozen
figures or so, carrying wraps, and talking. It was amazing to him
that they could behave with such composure. Two were even
quarrelling in subdued voices. . . .

It was hardly five minutes before the three bells rang again; and
before the fourth sounded, suddenly he saw drop beneath, like a
stone into a pit, the huge immovable platform that just now he
had conceived of as solid as the earth from which it had risen.
Down and down it went, swaying ever so slightly from side to
side, diminishing as it went; but before the motion had ceased
the fourth bell rang,