t the best bargain. There they will bicker with the khat traders for
an hour sometimes, then in will come the despised hadjis, the venders
of firewood, who will buy up for a few pice the scraps which remain."

This was all very interesting to the flyers, but it was high time to
hurry back and resume their flight; so, restraining their impulse to
ask more questions or investigate the attractions of the town, they
bought their supplies, and returned with the American minister to the
landing-field.

Ten minutes later the Sky-Bird was mounting easily up into the sky,
viewed by hundreds of shouting Arabs. It was good-bye to Persia now.

Looking at his watch, Paul, at the throttle, saw that it was
nine-fifty. They were leaving Aden only fifty minutes behind schedule.
That was not at all bad; but it was not pleasant to think that their
rivals were still ahead of them. And two hours was a pretty stiff lead.

They were not long in passing over the hills to the south, and then
headed eastward out over the elongated gulf. Looking back, John saw
the sandhills by the sea glistening in the bright sunlight like mounds
of gold-dust. Every leaf and stem in the scrub stood out in black and
silver filigree; and euphorbias and adeniums, gouty and pompous above
the lower growths, seemed like fantasies of gray on a Japanese screen
covered with cerulean velvet. It was their last sight of Persia, and
one not soon to be forgotten.

Our friends now settled down for a long hop, for they would have to fly
all day and all night before reaching Colombo.

After a while they sighted Socotra, the little isle off the coast of
Cape Guardafui, from whence comes most of the world's supply of
frankincense; then leaving its rocky shores behind them they cut
straight across the Persian Sea, braving whatever tropical storm might
arise.

All that day they swept over the blue waters of this great body,
frequently seeing ships below and sometimes small islands. Toward
night they ran into such hard headwinds that Bob went up higher. He
climbed steadily until the Sky-Bird had attained an altitude of nine
thousand feet. Here, as expected, they found the winds much less
forceful, but the sea was blotted out entirely by the clouds through
which they had passed in the process of rising and which now lay
between.

Indeed, these clouds resembled a billowy ocean of white foam in
themselves, or a landscape covered with hills and valleys of snow. The
ro