"Hardly. No one but a born fool would think of taking a westerly course round the earth if engaged in a race against time. We were passing over Belle Isle, on the French coast, at the time, and it rather puzzled me why an airship should be proceeding west from the Biscayan coast." "French patrol, possibly," suggested Kenyon. "Or a Hun running a cargo of arms and ammunition to Ireland. I signalled her, but she didn’t reply. Right-o! Carry on." Fosterdyke went to his cabin, to sleep like a log. He was one of those fortunate individuals who can slumber almost anywhere and at any time, but rarely if ever did he sleep for more than five hours at a stretch. Even after a strenuous day’s mental and physical work he would be "as fresh as paint" after his customary "caulk." Left in the company of the airman at the helm, Kenyon prepared to accept responsibility until eight o’clock. He took up his position at the triplex glass window, the navigation-room being the only compartment where celluloid was not employed for purposes of lighting. It was a weird sight that met his gaze. Overhead and projecting from beyond the point of the nacelle was the blunt nose of the gas-bag, the port side tinted a rosy red as the growing light glinted on it, the starboard side showing dark grey against the sombre sky. A thousand feet below were rolling masses of clouds, their nether edges suffused by dawn. Between the rifts in the bank of vapour was apparently a black, unfathomable void, for as yet the first signs of another day were vouchsafed only to the airman flying far above the surface of the sea. Already the stars had paled before the growing light. Wisps of vapour--clouds on a higher plane to the denser ones below--were trailing athwart the course of the "Golden Hind," until, overtaken by the airship’s high speed, they were parted asunder, to follow in the eddying wake of the powerful propellers. In the navigation-room, being placed right for’ard, the jerky motion of the fuselage that was noticeable in Kenyon’s cabin was greatly exaggerated. It was a totally different sensation from being in an aeroplane when the ’bus entered a "pocket." It reminded Kenyon of a lift being alternately started up and down with only a brief interval between. Rather vaguely the pilot wondered what he would be like at the end of twenty-one days of this sort of thing. "Bucking a bit, isn’t she, Thompson?" he remarked to the helmsman, who, relieved of the responsibility of maintaining a constant altitude by the fact that the airship was automatically controlled in that direction, was merely keeping the vessel on her compass course. "Yes, sir," replied the man. "She’ll be steadier when we trim the planes."