He rose from his chair and walked out on the terrace. The others followed after him. Looking westward, they saw the mammoth craft descending slowly in their direction. Its vast dimensions became more and more apparent as, spellbound, they watched it approach closer and closer to them. The thing in the sky was now not more than three thousand feet above them and only a few miles to the westward. The observers on the terrace regarded it for a moment in silence as it drifted forward and downward. "It's colossal!" Steinholt then exclaimed, lost in scientific admiration of the mammoth craft. "Magnificent! Superb!" "But it's coming right toward us!" cried Stanton. "What makes it move, I wonder?" asked Dirk. "And how in the world is it controlled?" "It surely is not of this world," said Fragoni quietly. "That gigantic thing has come to us from somewhere out of the infinite and terrible depths of space." * * * * * Another minute elapsed while they watched it, speechless with wonder. "Do you know," Lazarre then said calmly, "I believe that it is going to land in the waters of the Sound. It appears so to me, anyway." It was nearly opposite them by this time, and not more than a thousand feet above the water. A few planes which, very apparently, were being flown by intrepid and fearless flyers, were hovering close around it. Then finally it came to rest, as Lazarre had predicted, in the water some two miles off shore, and it was obscured by a great cloud of vapor for several minutes. "Steam," asserted Steinholt. "That trip around the world, which it made in a few minutes, generated considerable frictional heat in the shell." "Come," said Fragoni, "we'll fly out and look the thing over." Around the corner of the building, on the level of the terrace, there was a landing stage which was occupied by a number of planes of various sizes. Dirk entered the door of a small twenty passenger speedster, and the others filed in after him. "Ready?" he asked, after he had seated himself at the controls. "Ready!" replied Fragoni. The plane rose straight up into the air and then darted gracefully out over the Sound. * * * * * Dirk swooped straight down at the leviathan which lay so quietly on the surface of the Sound and then slowly circled around it. No sign of an aperture of any sort could be seen in the craft. Then he dropped the plane lightly on the water, close to the metallic monster, which towered fully four hundred feet above them, despite the fact that more than half of it was submerged. "It must be hollow," remarked Steinholt, "or it wouldn't be so far out of the water. In fact, it most certainly would sink, if it was solid."