It came to Arturo evidently as at once a disappointment and a relief. And it spurred him to his decision. If his adventure had any rationality, any possibility of success, it must be undertaken alone. I think, too, that secretly in his heart he welcomed this. He took his radio sender and a copy of his improvised radio code; in his Wasp, which he had provisioned and fueled, he started from “Sea End” within an hour after we had left. The Wasp, tiny as it was, could do a good three hundred. He flew north, and high, taking his chances with the traffic towers, who would have ordered him down below the five thousand foot lane upon any normal occasion. But this was not a normal occasion. The country was in confusion; the air directors were all more or less lax. Arturo was visible that morning to a score of their finders. But none, evidently, bothered to record his number; and when the air police, dutifully pursuing Dr. Plantet’s inquiry, sought to check the travel, there was no one to report his passage. Arturo was no fool. He had guessed all this, and played upon it. He clung to the ten and twenty thousand foot through lanes. With his three hundred mile speed he swept north far into Quebec; turned west, passing over the Dominion, where he guessed they would be even more lax. He went west, crossed the middle of Vancouver Island. At Alberni he took a necessary chance and refueled. He had played skillfully for his favorable wind-drift, and made good time. By ten o’clock that evening he was over the Pacific. He headed now southwest. It was a calm, clear night. The ten thousand foot lane was deserted. He lashed his controls, set his warning bells, and went to sleep. * * * * * The sun was rising when he awakened. The deserted sea beneath him was calm. No islands were in sight. The air was clear of craft. He seemed poised, motionless and alone between the two matched domes of sea and sky. He was young enough to be thoroughly refreshed and hungry. He had slept very nearly nine hours; he ate a lavish breakfast. Then he took his position. He found himself in thirty-two degrees twenty minutes N. and one hundred and fifty-five degrees six minutes W. Four hours of elapsed time afterward he swept over Gardner Island of the Hawaiians. The sun was still well in the east--he was gaining an hour of comparative local time for every fifteen degrees of longitude he traversed on his westward flight. He had feared that the Gardner tower might challenge him, but they did not. It was a long day of flight, but his eager thoughts possessed him. She might perhaps be there on her island. He wondered if it were the same girl he and I had seen in the globe beneath the surface. We had seen that face in the ocean not very far from this same island where the mermaid was reported. Had she been on her way up from the abyss then? Coming up, perhaps alone? For what reason?