By this time, both of them could see plainly the details of the machine which, constructed apparently of polished steel, flashed dizzily in the sunlight as it shot over the golf-course. It was evidently a hollow cylinder shaped like an anchor-ring or life-preserver, about seventy-five feet in diameter, with a tripod superstructure carrying, at its apex, a thimble-shaped device, the open mouth of which pointed downward through the middle of the machine. A faint yellow glare--a sort of luminous vapor--hovered below this gigantic car, which sailed through the air with a deep humming sound. "It's coming down!" shouted Bentham indignantly. "We'd better beat it! This is an outrage!" From overhead came a series of crackling vibrations, accompanied by a muffled roar like escaping steam. The car had ceased to move forward and was slowly descending. Strange creakings and snappings echoed like rifle-shots all about them, and a Niagara of what looked like hot steam shot through with a pale-yellow, phosphorescent light, drove down through the center of the ring and tore away the surface of the fair green, filling the air with a geyser of earth and grass. The two men, almost blinded by the rain of mud, sand, and small stones, ran like rabbits to the shelter of the nearest bunker. "Outrageous! Inexcusable!" sputtered Mr. Tassifer, as he cowered on the other side of it. "Fellow must be simply mad! Private property!" Then, after a couple of minutes, hearing no further sounds and the sand-storm having subsided, they raised their heads and peeked over the top of the bunker. Between the fourth and fifth holes, the turf on the fair green had been torn up in a circular patch of about a hundred feet in diameter, and in the shallow crater thus excavated, and surrounded by an irregular ring of divots, sand, and debris, rested a gigantic flying machine surmounted by a superstructure not unlike the fighting-mast of a battle-ship. The whole affair, embedded thus in the golf-course, had an air of permanency that irritated Mr. Tassifer, and, even as he gazed at the trespasser, a circular manhole opened in the side, a jointed steel ladder was lowered to the ground, and a short man in a strange kind of helmet climbed out and began to descend. Then it was that Mr. Tassifer rose to the occasion. "Here, you," he shouted, hurrying threateningly toward the newcomer; "this is private property! You can't land here! Take yourself off!" The man from the machine leaped to earth and turned a circular glass face, like a small aquarium, to the enraged golfer. From outside, his countenance had a horrible grotesque appearance, like that of a man-eating shark. Lowering his head, he charged like an infuriated bull at Mr. Tassifer, who ignominiously took to his heels and did not look round until he had gained the shelter of the clubhouse piazza. Mr. Judson had arrived there before him.