"Good morning, my Lord! Guess I never expected to meet even you like
this in the middle of the Atlantic! So the newspaper men were right for
once in a way, and you _have_ got an air-ship that will fly?"

"And a good deal more than that, Captain, if she wants to. I am just
taking a trial trip across the Atlantic before I start on a run round
the Solar System. Sounds like a lie, doesn't it? But it's coming off.
Oh, good morning, Miss Rennick! Captain, may I come on board?"

"By all means, my Lord, only I'm afraid I daren't stop Uncle Sam's
mails, even for you."

"There's no need for that, Captain, on a smooth sea like this," was the
reply. "Just keep on as you are going and I'll come alongside."

He put his head inside the door and called something up a speaking-tube
which led to a glass-walled chamber in the forward part of the roof,
where a motionless figure stood before a little steering wheel.

The craft immediately began to edge nearer and nearer to the liner's
rail, keeping speed so exactly with her that the threshold of the door
touched the end of the bridge without a perceptible jar. Then the
flannel-clad figure jumped on to the bridge and held out his hand to the
Captain.

As they shook hands he said in a low tone, "I want a word or two in
private with you, as soon as possible."

The commander saw a very serious meaning in his eyes. Besides, even if
he had not made his appearance under such extraordinary circumstances,
it was quite impossible that one of his social position and his wealth
and influence could have made such a request without good reason for it,
so he replied:

"Certainly, my Lord. Will you come down to my room?"

Hundreds of anxious, curious eyes looked upon the tall athletic figure
and the regular-featured, bronzed, honest English face as Rollo Lenox
Smeaton Aubrey, Earl of Redgrave, Baron Smeaton in the Peerage of
England, and Viscount Aubrey in the Peerage of Ireland, followed the

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