y performed
the duties of navigator--ascended to the pilot-house and, injecting a
sufficient quantity of vapour into the air-chambers to produce the
required vacuum, caused the ship to rise to a height of ten thousand
feet into the calm belt, sent the engines ahead, gradually raising their
speed to the maximum, and meanwhile heading the ship upon her proper
course. Then he returned below, and reported to Sir Reginald what he
had done, and all hands retired to their respective cabins for the
night, quite confident, from past experience, of the ship's ability to
take care of herself during the hours of darkness.

They all slept well, as was usual with them while enjoying this
delightful, untrammelled, open-air existence; but the eager enthusiasm
of the scientist and explorer caused the professor to be astir with the
first streak of dawn, and rising quietly, he made his way noiselessly,
in pyjamas and slippered feet, to the pilot-house, out of the windows of
which he peered eagerly about him.

The _Flying Fish_ was still sweeping steadily along through the air at a
speed of one hundred and twenty miles an hour, with her sharp snout
holding steadily to the course at which it had been set overnight; but
beneath her nothing was visible save a vast sea of impenetrably thick
white fog. The professor consulted his watch.

"We should be close to the spot by this time," he murmured. "Let us get
down beneath that fog, and see where we are."

He stopped the engines, opened the air-valve, and the great ship
instantly began to settle quietly down. In a few minutes she sank
gently into the fog-bank, and the professor, after touching another
lever or two, ran nimbly down the pilot-house stairs and out on deck,
that he might get a clear view of his surroundings. Stepping to the
guard-rail that took the place of bulwarks in the _Flying Fish_, he
looked eagerly about and under him. For a few seconds there was nothing
to be seen but huge wreaths of dense white steam-like mist writhing and
curling about the ship; then, here and there, great shapeless phantom
forms dimly appeared through the enshrouding fog, and the professor knew
that he was in the midst of a country thickly dotted with extensive
clumps of "bush." A moment later a slight grating jar told that the
ship had grounded, and hastening back to the pilot-house, von
Schalckenberg brought the four grip-anchors into action, thus securing
the ship to the spot on which she had