Flying steadily at over one hundred miles an hour it can be reckoned that the biplane soon swallowed up distance. In fact, late that afternoon she was over Italy, while an hour afterwards she swooped out over the Adriatic Sea, where she sighted the airship. Not that the latter was easily visible. But a practised eye could make her out. "See--the airship," said the Major, pointing towards her for Carl's benefit. "Ah! Yes. Then we sink to the water?" "No--we swoop towards her and land on her deck." "In midair! Is it--is it really safe?" asked this nervous passenger. "As houses," interjected Dick. "Hold on, sir! Don't speak to Joe, or he might make an error and drop us over the edge." It was a huge, if unkind, joke to watch the twitching face of the magnate, and, as is often enough the way of youth, Dick and Alec enjoyed Carl's discomfiture immensely. But they were near the ship now. Joe sent his biplane higher, till she was two thousand feet above the air vessel. Then he banked, banked till the machine looked as if she would turn turtle. But there was a master man at the controls, and at once the biplane dived downward, curling spirally, with her engine stopped, till she looked as if she would drop through the heart of the ship below her. Then the engine hummed, the propellers revolved, the biplane righted, dived swiftly, rose a yard or two, and then dropped without a quiver on the broad back waiting to receive her. "Welcome!" said Mr. Andrew Provost, accosting the party, and helping Carl Reitberg to alight. "Welcome to the ship which by your own challenge you yourself helped to erect." He led him to the lift, escorted him down to the gallery below, and showed him his cabin. In fact, Andrew did all that a host who is a gentleman could do for a guest. He didn't like Mr. Reitberg; he made no pretence of doing so. He was polite as a matter of course, and because it was good manners. But whatever he thought of this stout little magnate, indeed, whether he suspected the true depths of his sporting instincts, Andrew never imagined that he had just welcomed a crafty ruffian, a schemer, a mean-hearted man who, now that he was safely aboard, would leave no stone unturned till he had wrecked the vessel. As for Carl, he sat himself down by that precious box of his and mopped his forehead. "I've put up with a heap," he said. "Now my time's coming." CHAPTER XIII To the North-west Frontier