d, drawing her close to him:

"Nor I, as _you_ know, darling. This is our world, a world travelling
among worlds, and since I have been able to bring the most delightful of
the daughters of Terra with me, I, at any rate, am perfectly happy. Now,
I think it's getting on to supper time, so if your Ladyship will go to
your household duties, I'll have a look at my engines and make
everything snug for the voyage."

The first thing he did when he left the conning-tower was to
hermetically close every external opening in the ship. Then he went and
carefully inspected the apparatus for purifying the air and supplying it
with fresh oxygen from the tanks in which it was stored in liquid form.
Lastly he descended into the lower hold and turned on the energy of
repulsion to its fullest extent, at the same time stopping the engines
which had been working the propellers.

It was now no longer necessary or even possible to steer the _Astronef_.
She was directed solely by the repulsive force which would carry her
with ever-increasing swiftness, as the attraction of the earth
diminished, towards that neutral point at which the attraction of the
earth is exactly balanced by the moon. Her momentum would carry her past
this point, and then the "R. Force" would be gradually brought into play
in order to avert the unpleasant consequences of a fall of some forty
odd thousand miles.

Andrew Murgatroyd, relieved from his duties in the wheel-house, made a
careful inspection of the auxiliary machinery, which was under his
special charge, and then retired to his quarters in the after end of the
vessel to prepare his own evening meal.

Meanwhile, her Ladyship, with the help of the ingenious contrivances
with which the kitchen of the _Astronef_ was stocked, had prepared a
dainty little _souper a deux_. Her husband opened a bottle of the finest
champagne that the cellars of Smeaton could supply, to drink to the
prosperity of the voyage, and the health of his beautiful
fellow-voyager. When he had filled the two tall glasses the wine began
to run over the side which was toward the stern of the vessel. They took
no notice of this at first, but when Zaidie put her glass down she
stared at it for a moment, and said, in a half-frightened voice:

"Why, what's the matter, Lenox? look at the wine! It won't keep
straight, and yet the table's perfectly level--and see! the water in the
jug looks as though it were going to run up the side."

Redgrave took