The wind fell and the sun came out. The ship was put to rights and, scarcely knowing where we were, we headed due north. It seemed about midday. We had a full ration and dosed away in a pleasant sunshine to the steady creaking of some stay or rippling flutter of some loose ribbon in the air-chambers above. We smoked and dreamed of home. A little later our Intelligence Officer, now at his post again, assured us he could tell from the birds beneath us that we were near land. "What land?" we all asked. "I'll tell you at tea-time," he said. At tea-time he reappeared. "Through a break in the mists below us I'm sure I saw a town," he said, "white dots on green." "Possibly sheep," said one. "Or sea birds on a green sea," ventured another. "Rot," replied he. "It is not green; why, it is the Black Sea." Two hours later, as the twilight fell around us, we saw, as in a flash through a rent veil, the twinkling of a myriad lights. Some one suggested fire-flies. "A mirage," said an orderly from the stern raft. Without doubt it was a town. Great excitement prevailed. Our navigating officer believed it to be Odessa. "I believe it's Constanty," declared Wully, and as the lights grew nearer he became more insistent. "The sea is beyond and around the lights, it must be Constanty." And half an hour later, "I tell you I can see mosques and minarets; besides, I know Constanty. I am absolutely----" Boom! A dull billowy wave of sound reached us. "That proves it," he said; "we are being fired at." On this a council was held, and it was decided to steer due N.W. We ran before a strong southerly wind that until now had been on our port beam. We did about sixty knots, and by fifty hoped to have reached Russian territory. But to be quite sure we kept on until midnight, when we descended to what we considered was 5000 feet. Suddenly a cry from the pilot brought every one to his feet. There, not a 1000 feet below us--a mere 300 yards--were the white-crested, creeping waves towards which we were rushing.... "Hold on." Boom! Swish! Our second barrel of gas was exploded and we rushed up and up. But once there the "Homeward Bound" began to sink again. "Pedal, pedal, or we are lost," shouted Tipton. And they _did_ pedal. But we still sank slowly.... "Lighten ship," he roared, as the repair party tackled a huge rent in the side of the bag. Things were slung overboard wholesale and the dinghy cut adrift. The ship then steadied and gently rose, but not before a large volume of the _Mastik_ was hurled overboard by Blind Hookey. "My poems, my precious poems," shouted Mr. Belton, as he leaped to save them. He slipped, beat the air, and had not Mr. _Smoke_ seized him by the coat tails and twirled himself around a stanchion he had followed _Mastik_ into the abyss of mist and cold grey sea. The gas generator was set going and we gradually rose to 10,000 feet once more.