it about daybreak on the following morning.

The voyage was quite uneventful, and the course that they pursued led
them westward through the Zegzeb and Nyti countries, then
north-westward along the valley of the Niger, and then westward
across the desert to the desolate sandy shores of the Western Sahara,
which they crossed at sunrise on the Sunday morning, in the latitude
of the island which was to form their rendezvous with the steamer.

They sighted the island about an hour later, but there was no sign of
any vessel for fifty miles round it. The ocean appeared totally
deserted, as, indeed, it usually is, for there is no trade with this
barren and savage coast, and ships going to and from the southward
portions of the continent give its treacherous sandbanks as wide a
berth as possible. This, in fact, was the principal reason why this
rocky islet, some sixty miles from the coast, had been chosen by the
Terrorists for their temporary dockyard.

According to their calculations, the steamer would not be due for
another twenty-four hours at the least, and at that moment would be
about three hundred miles to the northward. The _Ariel_ was therefore
headed in that direction, at a hundred miles an hour, with a view to
meeting her and convoying her for the rest of her voyage, and
obviating such a disaster as Natasha's apprehensions pointed to.

The air-ship was kept at a height of two thousand feet above the
water, and a man was stationed in the forward conning tower to keep a
bright look-out ahead. For more than three hours she sped on her way
without interruption, and then, a few minutes before twelve, the man
in the conning tower signalled to the wheel-house--"Steamer in
sight."

The signal was at once transmitted to the saloon, where Arnold was
sitting with the rest of the party; he immediately signalled
"half-speed" in reply to it, and went to the conning tower to see the
steamer for himself.

She was then about twelve miles to the northward. At the speed at
which the _Ariel_ was travelling a very few minutes sufficed to bring
her within view of the ocean voyagers. A red flag flying from the
stern of the air-ship was answered by a similar one from the mainmast
of the steamer. The _Ariel's_ engines were at once slowed down, the
fan-wheels went aloft, and she sank gently down to within twenty feet
of the water, and swung round the steamer's stern.

As soon as they were within hailing distance, those on board the
a