During the early part of his stay in Vairkingi he had always gone to some one of the constantly burning lamps which were the primitive fire source of the furry Vairkings. Later he had found several pieces of flint, when investigating a small chalk deposit as a possible alternative for limestone in his smelting operations. After the manufacture of steel had begun he had practiced striking a light in this more modern method, and thereafter had always carried flint and steel and tinder with him in one of the pouch pockets of his leather tunic. It was with these crude implements that he had kindled his oil lamp for the present flight. But this fire source would avail him little if a gust of wind should extinguish his primitive lamp. In such event, what could he do? This question was immediately put to the test, for his ship struck a small air pocket and dipped. Out went the light! Now he could no longer read his compass nor his altimeter, but—happy thought—he could determine the inclination of the plane from time to time by _touching_ his clinometer. So, on upward he kept. Presently he found it difficult to breath, and this difficulty was soon increased by a damp fog, which choked his nostrils and windpipe, causing him to cough and sneeze. The water condensed on the airship, and dropped off the rigging onto the matted hair and beard of the earth-man. Yet still he kept on up. Finally he breathed clear air once more. He pushed back the dripping locks from his forehead, and wiped out his water-filled eyes with the back of one wrist. All was still jet darkness, yet in front of him and above him there glowed some tiny points of light. Rubbing his eyes, he looked again. Stars! The first stars he had ever seen on Poros—a sky full of stars! With some surprise Myles Cabot noted that above him were swung the same constellations with which he had been familiar on earth, among them the two dippers, Orion and Cassiopea. He strove to recall the inclination of the axis of Venus to the ecliptic, but all that he could remember was that it did not differ appreciably from that of the earth. This information was enough for his present purposes, however, for it meant that the star which we call the pole star on earth was approximately north on Poros, and that its altitude above the northern horizon would give approximately the latitude of the location of the observer. The pole star, which he readily identified by means of the two pointers of the great dipper, now hung about twenty degrees above the horizon, thus showing that Cabot was opposite the southern tip of that part of the continent of Cupia which formerly was Formia; so he leveled out the plane and, turning its nose northwest by the stars, scudded along above the cloud envelope of the planet.