The shout which the midshipman gave might have been heard at the far end of the vessel. The prospect filled him with delight, so that he was simply boiling over with enthusiasm and anticipation. Nor did his excitement evaporate as the day advanced. For the ship manoeuvred over the ocean, and was put through her paces. Towards evening, however, her nose was turned to the north-east, and as night fell she hovered over England. Slowly she descended, obscured in darkness, till her pilot was able to pick up his bearings. A distant light of curious colour caught his eye and he sent the ship towards it. Then, when directly overhead that same brilliant light suddenly shot from the ship and flooded the buildings beneath. Dick found himself looking down upon a huge shed, placed in a wide-open place, and--could he believe his eyes?--the shed was moving, revolving, actually turning. It made him giddy. Or was it this wonderful ship which was turning? "It's the revolving hangar, of course," Alec told him, with a laugh. "You see, if the wind's blowing, we head up to it. The hangar opens away from the point from which the gale comes. We manoeuvre opposite it, and enter easily. You watch. No one is wanted to hang on to ropes. Our pilot can manage the ship in any direction. See, we've dropped opposite the shed; but we're not quite head on. We're getting near it, however, for those propellers located in the cross tubes are being set to work. Ah! that's better. See, we're creeping in. Now our huge lateral keels run into wide slots built into the sides of the hangar. They engage and run in farther. Right! We're home. Welcome to our kennel." And what of the trip promised by Joe Gresson, and of the adventures it might and certainly should bring in its train? "Jingo!" cried Dick, as he hastened to the post office to send a telegram requesting that his full kit might be sent to him. "Jingo, if we don't have a cruise worth talking about, well--well, my name ain't Dicky." CHAPTER VI Carl Reitberg, Sportsman It may be imagined that the manufacture of an airship such as Dick Hamshaw had been introduced to, the child of Joe Gresson's clever brain, was not the work of a day. Four months had slipped by since that eventful day on which the young inventor and his uncle, Andrew Provost, had witnessed the flight of the Zeppelin outside Hamburg, and had accepted Carl Reitberg's somewhat arrogant challenge. Nor did the trial flights of this wonderful vessel escape public notice, though, it is true, her hull was practically invisible. But the rescue of a naval party sent to help a foundered aviator was bound to be reported, so that on the very morning after Andrew and his friends reached their hangar, the journals were filled with this new mystery, while columns, indeed, were devoted to this new airship.