The captain was naturally very much depressed by the turn of events. Somehow he felt that he had not acted very heroically in the matter. He had considered the safety of his distinguished passengers perhaps too much. "If I had had no passengers to consider, I would have remained aloft until the whole liner had been shot to ribbons!" he declared to himself, when he at last retired for a few minutes to his private cabin. "They should never have taken me alive! But there, my instructions stand--the safety of the passengers and crew before anything else. I was a fool, though, to act as I did. I ought to have sent out the S.O.S. to Cairo without a second’s delay, instead of arguing with this brigand; but there, whoever expected to encounter anything like this?" Then as his thoughts turned to the wonderful machine, he endeavoured to docket all the information he could remember about the brigand’s aeroplane, for he knew that he would be expected to recount every detail when he met the court of enquiry, "which," he murmured, "is as certain to take place as to-morrow’s sunrise. "Gee whiz! Three hundred miles an hour, and silent engines to boot! Phew! nobody will believe me, anyhow. Still, I shall have to face the music, and also to explain why I have lost a hundred thousand pounds of specie," and the skipper looked down on the white sands below, and for a moment he almost contemplated suicide. "I wouldn’t mind if I could only bring sufficient information to the authorities to lead to the speedy capture of the villain, but I can’t. There wasn’t time even for a photograph. The bandit was aware of all that, and I understand that every camera was removed from the airship before he let us go." At that instant there came a slight tap at the cabin door. "Come in!" cried the commander, expecting some further report from the sick-berth steward about the condition of the maharajah, who, half an hour ago, was said to be showing signs of recovery, owing to the bracing air at three thousand feet. The door opened, and Gadget, the ship’s mascot, appeared. Now Gadget’s newest hobby was photography, and through the kindness of the photographic officer he had become the proud possessor of a small pocket camera. "I got her, sir! Thought you’d like to see her ... begging your pardon," and Gadget, with his dirty, but sunny, smiling face stopped short and pulled his lock of hair by way of salute, as the captain pulled him up sharply by snapping out:-- "Got whom? Like to see whom, Gadget?" "The ’Clutchin’ Hand,’ sir," explained Gadget, who now found himself floored for once by his want of English. "I don’t understand, boy?" "The bloke what played the dirty on us, sir," replied the boy, opening wide his bright blue eyes, and holding out three wet and recently developed pocket films. "Him what got the swag, sir," continued the urchin, endeavouring to make himself clear.