"Bear away and look out for boats!" directed Bennie, and they took a wide sweep and left the islands far to the south. Ahead of them, Rhoda saw a small black dot from which arose a dark smudge. "That must be one of the Cunard steamers!" she cried. "Oh, _do_ let's go down where we can watch the people! I should so like to see a human being again!" Burke laughed, and the Ring dipped like a swallow and skimmed along only half a mile above the surface of the Atlantic. Soon the liner was just in front of them, and they veered to avoid striking her with the ray. Her decks swarmed black with people, and, through the glasses, sailors could be seen working at the life-boats. "I wonder what they think we are!" exclaimed Rhoda, looking for Burke, who had left his post. "He's going to wireless them not to be afraid. They're precious near a panic down there," explained Bennie. By the time the aviator reappeared, the steamer was four or five miles behind them. "That's the Saxonia," he told them. "Captain says they recognized us, and only got the boats ready for fear the ray might make trouble. What course, Professor? Shall we run across to Florida and up the coast, or follow the lanes to Nova Scotia and work down?" "The shortest," urged Rhoda, and Burke laid their course by compass and called Atterbury to the lever while they snatched some breakfast, for the sunlight and sight of the sea combined to make them all ravenously hungry. They had lifted to a height of about three miles. The white crests of the rollers had melted into the vast expanse of blue, and only the smoke patches showed where steamers lay everywhere about them. "How crowded the ocean is!" remarked the girl. Picking their way with care, lest the ray should do some unintentional damage, they continued westward until a dark line on the horizon suddenly appeared and began to creep toward them. Then they swung to the south to avoid the Bay of Fundy and found themselves, owing to the rapid falling-away of the coast-line, out in the bosom of the vast Atlantic again. Once more turning west, they came down to less than a mile and soon picked up a barrier of sand-dunes edged by a white rim of surf. There were ships everywhere about them--the coastwise trade of the New England seaboard. "This won't do!" declared Burke. "If we don't get over land, we'll be bound to do damage." They slanted and soared shoreward. A lighthouse broke the line of dunes and beach, rising out of a group of small white buildings and surrounded by the wire enclosure of a chicken-yard.