ly visible, stood Prester
Kleig himself, and as his picture appeared he was in the act of turning.

"Now," said Kleig himself, there in the Secret Room, "look off to the
left, gentlemen, a mile from the _Stellar_!"

A rustling sound as the scientists shifted in their places.

* * * * *

They all saw it, and a gasp burst from their lips as though at a signal.
For, as the _Stellar_ seemed about to plunge off the shadowed screen
into the Secret Room, a flying thing had risen out of the sea--an
airplane with a bulbous body and queerly slanting wings.

At the same time, out of the mouth of the pictured figure of Prester
Kleig, clear and agonized as the tones of a bell struck in frenzy, the
words:

"Great God! Lower the boats! Lower the boats! For God's sake lower the
boats!"

In the Secret Room the real Prester Kleig spoke again.

"When the black streak leaves the nose of the plane, after it has
submerged, Professor Maniel," said Kleig softly, "slow your mechanism so
that we can see the whole thing in detail."

There came a grunted affirmative from Professor Maniel.

The nose of the pictured plane tilted over, diving down for the surface
of the sea.

"Now!" snapped Kleig. "Don't wait!"

Instantly the moving pictures on the screen reduced their speed, and the
plane appeared to stop its sudden seaward plunge and to drop down as
lightly as a feather. The wings of the thing moved forward slowly,
folding into the body of the dropping plane.

"They fold forward," said Kleig quietly, "so that the speed of the plane
in the take-off will snap them _backward_ into position for flying!"

* * * * *

No one spoke, because the explanation was so obvious.

Slowly the airplane went down to the surface of the sea, with scarcely a
plume of spindrift leaping back after she had struck. She dropped to ten
feet below the surface of the water, a hundred yards off the starboard
beam of the _Stellar_, her blunt nose pointing squarely at the side of
the doomed liner.

"Now," said Kleig hoarsely, "watch closely, for God's sake!"

The liner rose and fell slowly. Out of the nose of the plane, which had
now become a tiny submarine, started a narrow tube of black, oddly like
the sepia of a giant squid. Straight toward the side of the liner it
went. Above the rail the Secret Agents could see the pictured form of
Prester Kleig, hand upraised. The black streak reached the sid