Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS BY J. STORER CLOUSTON 1919 CONTENTS PART I CHAPTER I In the Clouds II The Man on the Shore III Alone Again IV The Suspicious Stranger V The Doctor's House VI A Petticoat VII At the Mansion House VIII Sunday IX An Ally X The Coast Patrol XI A Near Thing XII The Key Turned XIII On the Drifter XIV My Cousin's Letter PART II CHAPTER I An Idea II A Little Dinner III The Alcoholic Patient IV The Test V Waiting VI The Spectacled Man VII A Reminiscence VIII H.M.S. _Uruguay_ IX Bolton on the Track X Where the Clue Led XI An Eye-Opener XII The Confidant XIII Jean's Guesses XIV The Pocket Book XV Part of the Truth XVI Tracked Down XVII The Rest of the Truth XVIII The Frosty Road XIX Our Morning Call THE MAN FROM THE CLOUDS PART I I IN THE CLOUDS "My God," said Rutherford, "the cable has broken!" In an instant I was craning over the side of the basket. Five hundred feet, 700 feet, 1000 feet, 2000 feet below us, the cruiser that had been our only link with the world of man was diminishing so swiftly that, as far as I remember, she had shrunk to the smallness of a tug and then vanished into the haze before I even answered him. "Anything to be done?" I asked. "Nothing," said he. It had been growing steadily more misty even down near the water, and now as the released balloon shot up into an altitude of five, ten, and presently twelve thousand feet, everything in Heaven and earth disappeared except that white and clammy fog. By a simultaneous impulse he lit a cigarette and I a pipe, and I remember very plainly wondering whether he felt any touch of that self-conscious defiance of fate and deliberate intention to do the coolest thing possible, which I am free to confess I felt myself. Probably not; Rutherford was the real Navy and I but a zig-zag ringed R.N.V.R. amateur. Still, the spirit of the Navy is infectious and I made a fair attempt to keep his stout heart company. "What _ought_ to happen to a thing like this?" I enquired. "If this wind holds we might conceivably make a landing somewhere--with extraordinary luck." "On the other side?" He nodded and I reflected.