n motion.

Arnold now turned a few spokes of the wheel, and headed the _Ariel_
due east by the compass. Then he touched a third button. The side
propellers began to turn swiftly on their axes, and, at the same time
the speed of the fan-wheels slackened, and gradually stopped.

Colston now began to feel the air rushing by him in a stream so rapid
and strong, that he had to take hold of the side of the wheel-house
doorway to steady himself.

"I think you had better come inside and shut the door," said Arnold.
"We are getting up speed now, and in a few minutes you won't be able
to hold yourself there. You'll be able to see just as well inside."

Colston did as he was bidden, and as soon as he was safely inside
Arnold pulled a lever beside the wheel, and slightly inclined the
planes from forward aft. At the same time the fan-wheels began to
slide down the masts until they rested upon the deck.

"Now, you shall see her fly," said Arnold, taking a speaking-tube
from the wall and whistling thrice into it.

Colston felt a slight tremor in the deck beneath his feet, and then a
lifting movement. He staggered a little, and said to Arnold--

"What's that? Are we going higher still?"

"Yes," replied the engineer. "She is feeling the air-planes now under
the increased speed. I am going up to fifteen hundred feet, so that
we shall only have the highest peaks to steer clear of in crossing
Scotland. Now, use your eyes, and you will see something worth
looking at."

The upper part of the wheel-house was constructed almost entirely of
glass, and so Colston could see just as well as if he had been on
deck outside. He did use his eyes. In fact, for some time to come,
all his other senses seemed to be merged in that of sight, for the
scene was one of such rare and marvellous beauty, and the sensations
that it called up were of so completely novel a nature, that, for the
time being, he felt as though he had been suddenly transported into
fairyland.

The cloud-sea now lay about seven hundred feet beneath them. The sun
had sunk quite below the horizon, even at that elevation; but his
absence was more than made up for by the nearly full moon, which had
risen to the southward, as though to greet the conqueror of the air,
and was spreading a flood of silvery radiance over the snowy plain
beneath, through the great gaps in which they could see the darker
sheen of the moving sea-waves.

Their course lay almost exactly along the fifty-s