ixth parallel of
latitude, and took them across Argyle, Dumbarton, and Stirlingshire
to the head of the Firth of Forth. As they approached the mainland,
Colston saw one or two peaks rise up out of the clouds, and soon they
were sweeping along in the midst of a score or so of these. To the
left Ben Lomond towered into the clear sky above his attendant peaks,
and to the right the lower summits of the Campsie Fells soon rose a
few miles ahead.

The rapidity with which these mountain-tops rose up on either side,
and were left behind, proved to Colston that the _Ariel_ must be
travelling at a tremendous speed, and yet, but for a very slight
quivering of the deck, there was no motion perceptible, so smoothly
did the air-ship glide through the elastic medium in which she
floated.

So engrossed was he with the unearthly beauty of the new world into
which he had risen, that for nearly two hours he stood without
speaking a word. Arnold, wrapped in his own thoughts, maintained a
like silence, and so they sped on amidst a stillness that was only
broken by the soft whirring of the propellers, and the singing of the
wind past the masts and stays.

At length a faint sound like the dashing of breakers on a rocky coast
roused Colston from his reverie, and he turned to Arnold and said--

"What is that? Not the sea, surely!"

"Yes, those are the waves of the Firth of Forth breaking on the
shores of Fife."

"What! Do you mean to tell me that we have crossed Scotland already?
Why, we have not been an hour on the way yet!"

"Oh yes, we have," replied the engineer. "We have been nearly two.
You have been so busy looking about you that you have not noticed how
the time has passed. We have travelled a little over two hundred and
forty miles. We are over the German Ocean now, and as there will be
no more hills until we reach the Ourals we can go down a little."

As he spoke he moved the lever beside him about an inch, and
instantly the clouds seemed to rise up toward them as the _Ariel_
swept downwards in her flight. A hundred feet above them Arnold
touched the lever again, and the air-ship at once resumed her
horizontal course.

Then he put her head a little more to the northward, and called down
the speaking tube for Andrew Smith to come and relieve him. A minute
later Smith's head appeared at the top of the companion-ladder which
led from the saloon to the wheel-house, and Arnold gave him the wheel
and the course, saying at the s