hat would hardly deceive a child? You
captured nine of the Tsar's war-balloons this morning, had an
interview with his Majesty, got this letter from him at Cuestrin--more
than five hundred miles away, and bring it here, and it is barely two
in the afternoon!

"No, gentlemen, I am too old a sailor to be taken in by a yarn like
that. I believe this letter to be a forgery, and I will not give the
air-ship up on its authority."

"That is your last word, is it?" asked Mazanoff, white with passion,
but still forcing himself to speak coolly.

"That is my last word, sir, save to tell you that if you do not haul
that flag you are masquerading under down at once I will fire upon
you," shouted the Admiral, tearing the Tsar's letter into fragments
as he spoke.

"If I haul that flag down it will be the signal for the air-ships up
yonder to open fire upon you, so your blood be on your own heads!"
said Mazanoff, stamping thrice on the deck as he spoke. The
propellers of the _Ariel_ whirled round in a reverse direction, and
she sprang swiftly back from the battleship, at the same time rising
rapidly in the air.

Before she had cleared a hundred yards, and before the flag of truce
was hauled down, there was a sharp, grinding report from one of the
tops of the man-of-war, and a hail of bullets from a machine gun
swept across the deck. Mazanoff heard a splintering of wood and
glass, and a deep groan beside him. He looked round and saw the
Professor clasp his hand to a great red wound in his breast, and fall
in a heap on the deck.

This was the event of an instant. The next he had trained one of the
bow-guns downwards on the centre of the deck of the Russian flagship
and sent the projectile to its mark. Then quick as thought he sprang
over and discharged the other gun almost at random. He saw the
dazzling green flash of the explosions, then came a shaking of the
atmosphere, and a roar as of a hundred thunder-claps in his ears, and
he dropped senseless to the deck beside the corpse of the Professor.

[Illustration: "There was a sharp, grinding report from one of the
tops of the man-of-war."

_See page 232._]

CHAPTER XXXI.

A RUSSIAN RAID.

Mazanoff came to himself about ten minutes later, lying on one of the
seats in the after saloon, and all that he saw when he first opened
his eyes was the white anxious face of Radna bending over him.

"What is the matter? What has happened? Where am I?" he asked, as
soon as his