Under whatever circumstances the Russians have obtained the assistance of the air-ship, which rendered them services that have proved so disastrous to the Allies, there can be no doubt but that her arrival on the scene puts a completely different aspect on the face of affairs at sea. I have written this telegram on board first-class torpedo-boat, No. 87, which followed the Russian fleet from the Sound round the Skawe. They passed through the Kattegat in two columns of line ahead, with the air-ship apparently resting after her flight on board one of the largest steamers. We could see her quite distinctly by the glare of the rockets and the electric light. She is a small three-masted vessel almost exactly resembling the one which partially destroyed Kronstadt in the middle of March. After rounding the Skawe, the Russian fleet steamed away westward into the German Ocean, and we put in here to send off our despatches. This telegram has, of course, been officially revised, and my information, as far as it goes, can therefore be relied upon. CHAPTER XXVI. AN INTERLUDE. At noon on the 26th, as the tropical sun was pouring down its vertical rays upon the lovely valley of Aeria, the _Ithuriel_ crossed the Ridge which divided it from the outer world, and came to rest on the level stretch of sward on the northern shore of the lake. Before she touched the earth Arnold glanced rapidly round and discovered his aërial fleet resting under a series of large palm-thatched sheds which had already been erected to protect them from the burning sun, and the rare but violent tropical rain-storms. He counted them. There were only eleven, and therefore the evil tidings that they had heard from the captain of the _Andromeda_ was true. Even before greetings were exchanged with the colonists Natas ordered Nicholas Roburoff to be summoned on board alone. He received him in the lower saloon, on either side of which, as he went in, he found a member of the crew armed with a magazine rifle and fixed bayonet. Seated at the cabin table were Natas, Tremayne, and Arnold. The President was received in cold and ominous silence, not even a glance of recognition was vouchsafed to him. He stood at the other end of the table with bowed head, a prisoner before his judges. Natas looked at him for some moments in dead silence, and there was a dark gleam of anger in his eyes which made Arnold tremble for the man whose life hung upon a word of a judge from whose sentence there could be no appeal. At length Natas spoke; his voice was hard and even; there were no modulations in it that displayed the slightest feeling, whether of anger or any other emotion. It was like the voice of an impassive machine speaking the very words of Fate itself. "You know why we have returned, and why you have been sent for?" "Yes, Master." Roburoff's voice was low and respectful, but there was no quaver of fear in it.