"I am not an evil spirit, my friend!" she said--"You need not exorcise me! I am nothing but a student with a little more imagination than is common, and in the moving force which carries our ship along I am only using a substance which, as our scientists explain, 'has an exceptional capacity for receiving the waves of energy emanating from the sun and giving them off.' On the 'giving off' of those waves we move--it is all natural and easy, and, like every power existent in the universe, is meant for our comprehension and use. You cannot say you feel any sense of danger?--we are sailing with greater steadiness than any ship at sea--there is scarcely any consciousness of movement--and without looking out and down, we should not realise we are so far from earth. Indeed we are going too far now--we do not realize our speed." "Too far!" said Gaspard, nervously--"Madama, if we go too far we may also go too high--we may not be able to breathe!..." She laughed. "That is a very remote possibility!" she said--"The waves of energy which bear us along are concerned in our own life-supply,--they make our air to breathe--our heat to warm. All the same it is time we returned--we are not provisioned." She called to Rivardi, and he, with the slightest turn of the wheel, altered the direction in which the air-ship moved, so that it travelled back again on the route by which it had commenced its flight. Soon, very soon, the dainty plot of earth, looking no more than a gay flower-bed, where Morgana's palazzo was situated, appeared below--and then, acting on instructions, Gaspard opened the compartments at either end of the vessel. The vibrating rays within dwindled by slow degrees--their light became less and less intense--their vibration less powerful,--till very gradually with a perfectly beautiful motion expressing absolute grace and lightness the vessel descended towards the aerodrome it had lately left, and all the men who were waiting for its return gave a simultaneous shout of astonishment and admiration, as it sank slowly towards them, folding its wings as it came with the quiet ease of a nesting-bird flying home. So admirably was the distance measured between itself and the great shed of its local habitation, that it glided into place as though it had eyes to see its exact whereabouts, and came to a standstill within a few seconds of its arrival. Morgana descended, and her two companions followed. The other men stood silent, visibly inquisitive yet afraid to express their curiosity. Morgana's eyes flashed over them all with a bright, half-laughing tolerance.