Modern science had made the sea useless as a "wall" or "moat defensive" against attacks from the air,--but if there existed an atmospheric or "etheric" force which could be utilised and brought to such pressure as to encircle a city or a country with a protective ring that should resist all effort to break it, how great a security would be assured "against the envy of less happy lands"! Here was a problem for study,--study of the intricate character which she loved--and she became absorbed in what she called "thinking for results," a form of introspection which she knew, from experience, sometimes let in unexpected light on the creative cells of the brain and impelled them to the evolving of hitherto untried suggestions. She sat quietly with a book before her, not reading, but bent on seeking ways and means for the safety and protection of nations,--as bent as Roger Seaton was on a force for their destruction. So the hours passed swiftly, and no interruption or untoward obstacle hindered the progress of the "White Eagle" as it careered through the halcyon blue of the calmest, loveliest sky that ever made perfect weather, till late afternoon when it began to glide almost insensibly downward towards earth. Then she roused herself from her long abstraction and looked through the window of her cabin, watching what seemed to be the gradual rising of the land towards the air-ship, showing in little green and brown patches like the squares of a chess-board,--then the houses and towns, tiny as children's toys--then the azure gleam of the sea and the boats dancing like bits of cork upon it,--then finally the plainer, broader view, wherein the earth with its woods and hills and rocky promontories appeared to heave up like a billow crowned with varying colours,--and so steadily, easily down to the pattern of grass and flowers from the centre of which the Palazzo d'Oro rose like a little white house for the abode of fairies. "Well steered!" said Morgana, as the ship ran into its shed with the accuracy of a sword slipping into its sheath, and the soundless vibration of its mysterious motive-power ceased--"Home again safely!--and only away forty-eight hours! To the Sahara and back!--how far we have been, and what we have seen!" "WE have seen nothing"--said Rivardi meaningly, as he assisted her to alight--"The seeing is all with YOU!" "And the believing!" she answered, smiling--"All my thanks to you both for your skilful pilotage. You must be very tired--" here she gave her hand to them each in turn--"Again a thousand thanks! No air-ship could be better manned!" "Or woman'd?" suggested Rivardi. She laughed. "IF you like! But I only steered while you slept. That is nothing! Good night!" She left them, running up the garden path lightly like a child returning from a holiday, and disappeared. "But that which she calls nothing"--said Gaspard as he watched her go--"is everything!" CHAPTER XX