LITMIR.BIZ

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with which he was as yet unacquainted whetted Dicky's appetite for a complete inspection. But not yet. He was wet and cold, and decidedly hungry. The news that Sergeant Evans had imparted had made his mouth water. Dicky reminded himself that there was a hot meal in prospect, and so that it might not be delayed he dragged off his wet clothes, and immersed himself in a bath of steaming hot water that Alec had made ready for him. In about ten minutes he announced that he was fully dressed.

      "And as hungry as a hunter," he told his new friend. "You wait and try the same experience. I was almost in our gunroom. In any case I could tell you what we were to have for dinner, because in a ship you can't keep all galley smells away from your messroom. Then they passed the word for Mr. Hamshaw. Of course I had to go, leaving the other fellows to sit down to a meal which I really wanted. An hour's steaming made me ravenous, and then came our ducking. I say, lead the way there's a good fellow. But I'd like to see my men before I take a bite myself. Eh?"

      "Quite right. Look to your command first, then to number one. Follow down the passage."

      Dressed in Alec's clothing, and looking spruce and smart, Dicky followed his friend down the gallery, through the door by which Hawkins and his comrades had departed, and so into the quarters of the crew of this strange vessel. Nor did there seem to be need for anxiety for the welfare of the gallant fellows who had accompanied him upon the steam pinnace. Already they were changed and dressed in clothing hurriedly dragged from lockers. Surrounded by swinging bunks on either side, with one huge electric lamp shedding its light upon them, they were seated about a long table with half a dozen strangers amongst them.

      "All aboard and comfortable, sir," grinned Hawkins, standing as his officer appeared. "We've fallen amongst friends, and liberal ones too, sir."

      "And have got a meal here what ain't supplied every day of the week by the Admiralty, sir," gurgled Hurst. "Not by a long way."

      Dicky grinned his delight; and then, suddenly recollecting that it was not exactly the thing for an officer to listen to what might be construed as abuse of the Admiralty, he turned on his heel and motioned to Alec to lead the way.

      "And you mean to tell me that we're high up in the air, floating in space!" he cried.

      "One moment. Here we are – three thousand two hundred feet up," said Alec, stopping just outside the door of the men's quarters to inspect a barometer affixed to the wall. "That high enough?"

      Dicky was at once conscious of a creepy feeling down his back. "What!" he gasped. "Three thousand feet?"

      "Every inch of it. As safe as if you were on land; safer, perhaps, because you never know what's going to pass overhead nowadays, do you? What with airships and aeroplanes, the land's beginning to be a dangerous place to inhabit. Come along. You wait till it's daylight and you can see below. You'll get used to the height in a jiffy, and you'll agree that flying's magnificent. Here we are. Sergeant Evans!"

      He dived in through a doorway, ushering his friend into a large saloon, in the centre of which stood a table laid ready for dinner. And here again we record but the bare fact when we say that Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw positively gasped. He was dumbfounded at the luxury he found here, at the brilliant lights, at the huge table groaning with silver and glassware, at the laden sideboard, and at the richness of the decorations. Whoever heard of such things aboard a ship sailing in the air?

      "Wonderful!" he cried. "Why, I imagined there would be nothing but machinery – huge, oily engines thumping and thudding away at one's side, with just an odd corner for the captain and crew to rest in. This is magnificent; there's nothing better in all London."

      It was at least flattering to Andrew Provost's taste, since he had been the designer of all this magnificence. But who could expect Dicky Hamshaw to take notice of rich carpets, of glittering silver, of famous pictures clinging to silk-brocaded walls, when there was food before him? He was ravenous. Had Alec had any doubts about the matter before, this smart and jolly young sailor soon set them at rest. He tackled that meal with the same dash and energy with which he had undertaken the task that had sent him post haste away in the steam pinnace. It was, perhaps, half an hour later when, having eaten to his own and Alec's content, he leaned back in his chair, accepted with a wonderful assumption of coolness the cigarette which Sergeant Evans offered him, and setting a flaming match to the weed, tossed his head back and sent a cloud of smoke upward. A moment later he had leaped to his feet with an exclamation of amazement. He might have suddenly come upon a pin-point by the cry he gave. But undoubtedly something of real importance had created this excitement. He stood with his head tossed back, his eyes fixed upward, and his lips parted.

      "What's that?" he asked. "It startled me. I – I've never seen anything like it. One appears to be looking through an enormous window into space. What's the meaning of it?"

      His excitement caused Alec to smile, though he, too, looked his admiration as he gazed upward.

      "Wait a moment," he said. "I'll switch off the light here and then the effect will be greater. Now, how's that?"

      Well might Dicky give vent to exclamations of surprise and even of admiration, for, as he said, he had never seen anything nearly like this before. Up till now he had been far too busy with his meal to take note of anything but his immediate surroundings. But now, when he quite by chance cast his eyes upward, it was to become aware of the fact that this saloon apparently boasted of no ceiling. If it had one, then it was transparent; while, more wonderful than all, the supporting gas bag of this airship, which he imagined must be above, had all the appearance of being non-existent. Far overhead there burned one single electric lamp, casting its rays far and wide, illuminating the interior of the saloon brightly. But it appeared to hang to nothing, to be supported by no beam or rod, while the saloon itself in which he stood was, so far as he could see, attached to nothing. It was merely floating in the air, riding in space in the most uncanny and inexplicable fashion.

      "Jingo!" he cried, feeling that strange, creepy sensation down his back again. "We're – we're safe, I hope?"

      "As a house," laughed Alec. "But it does give one the creeps, don't it? The first night we were aboard and I looked upward it gave me quite a turn, even though I knew all the ins and outs of this wonderful vessel. Looks as if we were hanging here from nothing, eh?"

      Dicky admitted the fact, with something approaching a gasp.

      "And yet you're as sure as sure can be that such a thing is out of the question, absolutely impossible?"

      "Well, yes," admitted the young officer, not too enthusiastically, for that uncanny feeling that he was high in the air, and might easily find himself falling with terrible rapidity, assailed him. And who can blame the midshipman? Who that has found himself suddenly at the edge of a tall cliff and looked over has not been assailed by a sensation of uneasiness, by the natural desire to reach firmer and more secure ground, to retire from a spot which might easily be filled with perils? Then think of Dicky Hamshaw high above the sea, aboard a ship the size and shape and contour of which were unknown to him, standing in a gilded saloon to all appearances open to the sky, with no ropes, no beams – nothing, in fact, to show him how it was supported. No wonder he shivered. Even Alec forebore to smile. The situation was unpleasant and uncanny to say the least of it.

      "Place your two hands together and look between them," said Alec, suiting the action to the word. "Don't stare at the light up there, for it's so bright that it half blinds you. Look well to one side. Now. Eh?"

      He expected an answer, but Dicky failed to give it. Gasps of astonishment escaped his wide-parted lips, gasps denoting pleasure and admiration. For up above, now that he had shielded his eyes from the glare and looked away from the light, he could dimly make out huge girders stretching from left to right, criss-crossing and interlacing with one another. Here and there they ended apparently in nothing. Elsewhere they could be traced to their junction with other girders. And on beyond them, far overhead, he could even see stars, blurred a trifle by the material through which he observed them.

      "Well, of all the wonderful things of which I have ever heard, this beats all!" he gasped at last. "What's the thing made of? There are girders above there heavy enough to carry a 'Dreadnought'. There's a huge framework that looks as if it were constructed of solid bars of steel; and yet, to look at them in a half light, which just throws out their outline,

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