s heart.

* * * * *

A few minutes later, the four ecclesiastics were sitting at their round
table in a little screened compartment of the dining-room in the bows of
the air-ship. It was an excellent dinner, served, as usual, from the
kitchen in the bowels of the volor, and rose, course by course, with a
smooth click, into the centre of the table. There was a bottle of red
wine to each diner, and both table and chairs swung easily to the very
slight motion of the ship. But they did not talk much, for there was
only one subject possible to the two cardinals, and the chaplains had
not yet been admitted into the full secret.

It was growing cold now, and even the hot-air foot-rests did not quite
compensate for the deathly iciness of the breath that began to stream
down from the Alps, which the ship was now approaching at a slight
incline. It was necessary to rise at least nine thousand feet from the
usual level, in order to pass the frontier of the Mont Cenis at a safe
angle; and at the same time it was necessary to go a little slower over
the Alps themselves, owing to the extreme rarity of the air, and the
difficulty in causing the screw to revolve sufficiently quickly to
counteract it.

"There will be clouds to-night," said a voice clear and distinct from
the passage, as the door swung slightly to a movement of the car.

Percy got up and closed it.

The German Cardinal began to grow a little fidgety towards the end of
dinner.

"I shall go back," he said at last. "I shall be better in my fur rug."

His chaplain dutifully went after him, leaving his own dinner
unfinished, and Percy was left alone with Father Corkran, his English
chaplain lately from Scotland.

He finished his wine, ate a couple of figs, and then sat staring out
through the plate-glass window in front.

"Ah!" he said. "Excuse me, father. There are the Alps at last."

The front of the car consisted of three divisions, in the centre of one
of which stood the steersman, his eyes looking straight ahead, and his
hands upon the wheel. On either side of him, separated from him by
aluminium walls, was contrived a narrow slip of a compartment, with a
long curved window at the height of a man's eyes, through which a
magnificent view could be obtained. It was to one of these that Percy
went, passing along the corridor, and seeing through half-opened doors
other parties still over their wine. He pushed the spring door on the
left and went through.

He h