d.
As regards the Russian fleet, it had been followed past the Skawe,
and had headed out westward.

In their opinion it would consider itself strong enough, with the aid
of the air-ship, to sweep the North Sea, and would probably attempt
to force the Straits of Dover, as it has done the Sound, and effect a
junction with the French squadrons at Brest and Cherbourg. This done,
a combined attack might possibly be made upon Portsmouth, or the
destruction of the Channel fleet attempted. The effects of the
air-ship's shells upon both forts and ships had been so appalling
that the Russians would no doubt think themselves strong enough for
anything as long as they had possession of her.

"They were extremely polite," said Mazanoff, as he concluded his
story. "They asked me to go ashore and interview the Admiral, who,
they told me, would guarantee any amount of money on behalf of the
British Government if we would only co-operate with their fleets for
even a month. They said Britain would gladly pay a hundred thousand a
month for the hire of each ship and her crew; and they looked quite
puzzled when I refused point-blank, and said that a million a month
would not do it.

"They evidently take us for a new sort of pirates, corsairs of the
air, or something of that kind; for when I said that a few odd
millions were no good to people who could levy blackmail on the whole
earth if they chose, they stared at me and asked me what we did want
if we didn't want money. The idea that we could have any higher aims
never seemed to have entered their heads, and, of course, I didn't
enlighten them."

"Quite right," said Natas, with a quiet laugh. "They will learn our
aims quite soon enough. And now we must overtake the Russian fleet as
soon as possible. You say they passed the Skawe soon after five this
morning. That gives them nearly six hours' start, and if they are
steaming twenty miles an hour, as I daresay they are, they will now
be some hundred and twenty miles west of the Skawe. Captain Arnold,
if we cut straight across Zeeland and Jutland, about what distance
ought we to travel before we meet them?"

Arnold glanced at the chart which lay spread out on the table of the
saloon in which they were sitting, and said--

"I should say a course of about two hundred miles due north-west from
here ought to take us within sight of them, unless they are making
for the Atlantic, and keep very close to the Swedish coast. In that
case I shou