“And this little white girl--this Middge we named Nereid--you will guard her safely? Because I ask you to, for the sake of my friend?” “Yes.” She stood up suddenly, as though my insistence annoyed her. “We will talk again. You have nothing to fear.” She left the cubby. At the door a Gian came and stood to guard me. * * * * * I was allowed a fair liberty, here in the gray-white aëro. I moved where I pleased with increasing freedom, though always with a watchful man of the Gians beside me. Often I was with Nereid; there were times when we could snatch brief moments of talk, but always with watchful eyes upon us. The aëro, with its length of two hundred feet or more, was decked over with a long, low narrow cabin, which was divided into many small compartments, with a narrow passage down the center. A few of the rooms occupied the entire width of the vehicle; one such was in the bow-peak, with the operating mechanisms; behind that, another which was Rhana’s cabin. There was a narrow outer deck the length of the ship on both sides. Amidships was a room of weapons and apparatus for war. But this I was never allowed to approach. I think that the mechanism for spreading the disease germs was here. I never saw it. The vehicle, with its glowing side pontoons and its faintly luminous spar projecting from the bow, quite evidently operated similarly to the ones we had flown in the abyss. There were aboard perhaps fifty Gians. The men did what heavy, unskilled labor was needed and prepared the meals. There were women at the controls. Besides Rhana, I remembered having seen but one of these Gians before--that man, Bhool! He came sniveling up to me; and as though I did not know the full extent of his treachery, like a proud child he told me. He had murdered Fen; had been there in the house when we arrived; heard our plans to go to the gate-house; had hurried to tell Rhana. She had made her hasty trip to thwart us. He ended: “Bhool is very clever? You know it?” I cuffed him; and met Rhana’s approving, tolerant smile. How far we flew on this trip over the Lowlands I could not say. Or at what speed? I would have guessed it to be fully eight hundred, or even a thousand, miles an hour. The daylight came; we settled into the depths and waited for the light to pass. I was closely guarded in a cabin made dark so my guard could see. And when night came we started again. In all the swirl of mist and vague moonlight, it was a flight unreal, unearthly. I kept my general sense of direction, from the sun, and at night from the glimpses of the moon. I wondered how these women could pretend to navigate, especially an unknown region. But I saw they had curious instruments, and were making charts of what was passing beneath us. I asked Rhana. “We do not know where we are going,” she said. “But to come back the same way is very easy.”