"Last week. I have been here every night since--you come late, tonight of all nights! They're fighting over in the marshes--this traitorous Mercer and his men." Turber interrupted: "About the sloop, Atwood! Who cares about Mercer?" "Gad! You can brush me aside, but I've had a hellish time." "All right, Tony, I believe you." "It's well you should. I had thought if you did not come tonight, by tomorrow Mercer's troops might be here. And where would I be? Not here--that I promise you. As it is, Sir William does not think any too much of me. He called me somewhat of an ugly name last week. I think I am insulted." "Well, you didn't get the gold?" "No. The sloop got in--ninety days from the Bermudas in weather of the vilest sort. And then the blockade--but it got through. I have Somerset's letter. Your money was spent--" Turber laughed. "I fancy it was!" "--spent in what I warrant must have been no less than a digging up of all the beach on Cooper's Island. Treasure there was none." He added: "I did what I could. I hope this is your last passing, egad, it had better be, and take me with you. They'll be sending me on a still longer journey if I stay around here." They took him aboard. The aero hung over Staten Island and sped forward again in Time. Through the 1800's. The 1900's. And then, while the huge city grew under it, sped on five hundred years farther. It took only half an hour. Turber said: "We are here." The aero had settled--a phantom settling down in a shadowy city. It rested on that same rise of ground on Staten Island which in 1945 held the Turber Hospital. It flashed to a halt in 2445. Through the windows Nanette heard the tumultuous roar of the monstrous city. Turber led her from the aero. CHAPTER XVIII TURBER'S ULTIMATUM Alan and I, in the tower with Lea and San, were simultaneously heading for the same Time-place to which Turber now took Nanette. We did not know that Turber stopped in 1779. It would have availed us nothing. But we did know his final destination. The knowledge was poor consolation. Turber was practically impregnable in that giant city. Old Powl had said it; we knew that Lea and San thought so. All our efforts had been to keep Turber from taking Nanette there. It was his final strong-hold. As our tower sped forward in Time from the forests of little New Amsterdam, Alan and I found ourselves again with the barrier of language between us and Lea and San. Lea was beginning to talk a little. Her ability to learn was far in excess of what was normal to Alan and me. Already she seemed to understand much of what we said. But it was still an awkward barrier. We made them understand that we would stop in the giant city. San would land us there at a time similar to Turber's arrival.