Quietly as the words were spoken, Alan’s hand tightened upon hers as he heard them with a grip that almost made her cry out with pain. It was some moments before he recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to ask her the meaning of her unexpected and amazing question. She greeted his question with a saucy smile and a mocking, upward glance, and said quietly-- “Simply because I have seen them!” It was a bow drawn at a venture. She had suddenly determined to test the truth of her vision and hazard a description from it of the unknown land. “You have seen them?” cried Alan, now more amazed than ever. “But, pardon me, even at the risk of contradicting you I must tell you that that is impossible. No one not a born Aerian has set eyes on Aeria for more than a hundred years.” “So you think perhaps,” she said in the same quiet, half-mocking tone. “Well now, listen and tell me whether this description is entirely incorrect. If it is correct you need say nothing, if it is not you can tell me so.” And then she began, while he listened in a silence of utter stupefaction, and described the valley and city of Aeria as she had seen them in her dream-vision. When she had finished he was silent for several moments, and then said in a voice that told her that she had really seen it as though with the eyes of flesh-- “What are you? A sorceress, or--No, you cannot be an Aerian girl in disguise, for none ever leaves the country till she is married.” “Then as I cannot be the latter,” said Olga, “you must, I suppose, consider me the former. Now I shall take my revenge for your reticence in the train yesterday, and tell you no more. We are quits to that extent at least, and now we will go back to my brother, if you please.” With this Alan was forced to be content. Indeed, he could not have pursued the subject without breaking his oath, and so a few minutes later it came about that Olga and Serge were skating together in an unfrequented part of the lake, and here Olga took an opportunity that she might not have again of telling him as much as she thought fit for him to know of her plans for capturing the air-ship on the following day. “I needn’t tell you,” said she, “that this air-ship is worth everything to us, and that therefore we must be ready to go to any extremities to get possession of it. It is the first step to the command of the world, for you heard Alan say to-day that she is the swiftest vessel in the whole Aerian fleet.” “But to do that we must first overcome the crew,” said Serge, looking anxiously about to see if there was anyone within earshot. “How are we going to do that--two of us against ten or a dozen, armed with powers we know nothing about?” “We must find means to drug them--to poison them, if necessary, during to-morrow’s voyage,” came the reply, in a whisper that made his heart stand still for the moment with utter horror.