r me; a third as much from Nareda, for Jetta.

The details were swiftly arranged. We cut the circuit. I had a last
look at Hanley's face as the image of it faded. He seemed trying to
tell me to do the best I could; that he was powerless, and would do
nothing to jeopardize my life and Jetta's. Everything was ready for
the affair to be consummated at once. The weather was right; there was
time for Hanley and De Boer each comfortably to reach the assigned
meeting place.

We flew, for the first hour, nearly due west. The meeting place was at
35 deg. N. by 59 deg. W., a few hundred miles east by north of the
fairy-like mountaintop of the Bermudas. Our charts showed the Lowlands
there to run down to what once was measured as nearly three thousand
fathoms--called now eighteen thousand feet below the zero-height. A
broken region, a depth-ridge fairly level, and no Lowland sea, nor
any settlements in the neighborhood.

The time was set at an hour before midnight. No mail, passenger or
freight flyers were scheduled to pass near there at that hour, and,
save for some chance private craft, we would be undisturbed. The
ransom gold was available to Hanley. He had said he would bring it in
his personal Wasp.

* * * * *

The details of the exchange were simple. Hanley, with only one
mechanic, would hover at the zero-height, his Wasp lighted so that we
could see it plainly. The wind drift, according to forecast, would be
southerly. At 11 P.M. Hanley would release from his Wasp a small
helium-gas baloon-car--a ten-foot basket with the supporting gas bag
above it, weighted so that it would slowly descend into the depths,
with a southern drift.

Our flyer, invisible and soundless, would pick up the baloon-car at
some point in its descent. The gold would be there, in a black casket.
De Boer would take the gold, deposit Jetta and me in the car, and
release it again. And when the balloon finally settled to the rocks
beneath, Hanley could pick it up. No men would be hidden by Hanley in
that basket. De Boer had stipulated that when casting loose the
balloon, its car must be swept by Hanley with a visible electronic
ray. No hidden men could withstand that blast!

Such was the arrangement with Hanley. I was convinced that he intended
to carry it out to the letter. He would have his own invisible X-flyer
in the neighborhood, no doubt. But it would not interfere with the
safe transfer of Jetta and me.

That