"All the same they're meant for business," Joe told him, with that quiet, half-cynical smile for which he was notorious. "Oh yes, Dicky, we don't have useless attachments on this ship, unless--ahem! it's amongst the crew. I ain't, of course, referring to midshipmen." But he was. He was teasing the gallant Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw, and had he been Alec there would have been a rumpus. "Seriously, though," he went on when he had had his laugh, "they're for landing. You see, it don't do to bump a ship of this description. We want to reach terra firma gently. Now, if you were to jump from a height you'd land on your toes if possible, come down on to your heels, and then bend your knees, all by stages as it were, quickly enough you understand, but offering such graduated resistance that there would be no shock at all. That's what happens with those attachments. Each one is thirty feet in length, and hinged inside the frame of the airship at its upper and forward end. Now, watch us. We'll bump to the ground. How's that?" It really was remarkable, and so thought the people on board the liner. For Joe's practised hand arrested the engines. The ship came to a standstill. Then she fell as if she were a dead weight, was arrested within twenty feet of the ground merely by touching a single lever, and then descended sharply. But there was no shock. Those four antennæ hinged upward beneath the weight, gradually met it, and then held her firmly suspended. Even the glassware on the saloon table was not shaken. "And now for a trip on terra firma if only to stretch our legs," cried Joe. "We'll take it by turns, half at a time." It was singular how everyone fell in with the views of the young inventor; and, in fact, it was to be observed aboard the airship that though there was no recognized captain, no officers, and no regular crew, yet the work aboard progressed with a smoothness which was remarkable. There were rules, naturally enough, and all aboard had been assigned duties. But the simplicity of the whole contrivance, and above all, the efficiency of the engines, called for the smallest attention. "Merely see that the lubricators are working, and that the fuel feed is right, and things go along merrily," said Andrew, who was becoming quite an engineer. This opportunity of a trip ashore was seized upon by all in turn, and long walks over the sandhills were indulged in. Then the airship picked up passengers and crew once more, and rising from the sand steered a course east and north, swooping over the deserts of Arabia. All the following night she sped on without a halt, and when the lively Dick again trod the deck he looked down upon the Arabian Sea. But it was merely a corner of that vast ocean, for within a few hours the vessel was sweeping over Persia.