towards them at an amazing rate, and that too with no effort on his own part. Someone above must be paying out the rope to which he was attached. But who? Where was the spot from which he had started? What sort of vessel hovered aloft?
"I'm hanged," ventured Dicky.
"It's just the queerest thing as ever I seed, sir," admitted Hawkins. "But there's one thing I'm sure of. This here wreckage is what's left of a waterplane. See there – one of the floats is on the top of the water. There's generally two, so one can guess that the other's foundered, and if it wasn't for this here one the whole affair would have sunk. It's lucky for us and lucky for the man here. French, sir."
"Yes," agreed the young officer. "Looks it. Hallo!"
His last exclamation had been drawn from him by the sudden discovery that the man at the end of that strange rope was now within a matter of ten feet of him, swaying just overhead. In fact, in those few seconds during which Dicky had turned to inspect the wreckage to which he was clinging, the newcomer, descending as it were from the sky, had dropped to within speaking distance. Who was he? Of what nationality?
"Ahoy!" shouted Dicky, nothing daunted. "Where do you come from?"
A face looked down upon him, a face cast into shadow by that brilliant beam from above, and yet distinguishable to some extent by reason of the reflection from the water. It was a bearded face, that of a man in his early prime, strong, reliant, and dauntless, and bearing an expression familiar to the young officer. Did he know this man? Impossible.
"Who's that?" came in stentorian tones.
"Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw, sir," bellowed Hawkins, taking upon himself to answer; "he and the crew of the steam pinnace away from the Solent. We've struck against the wreck of a waterplane, and the pinnace has foundered."
"All present, I hope?"
"Aye, aye, sir!" shouted Dicky, for without a doubt the man above was a naval officer. He had the cut of a nautical man from head to foot, while whoever saw a man hang so comfortably in midair at the end of but a single rope but a sailor?
"And you can stick tight for a while?"
"Certainly," answered Dicky.
"Then hang on; I'll be down again in a minute."
The man waved his hand. There came a cry from far up aloft, and then the dangling figure was whisked upward at express speed, for all the world as if he were seated in an elevator going aloft in a New York skyscraper.
"I'm jiggered!" gasped Hurst, silenced up till now by the novelty of the situation. "Why, look what's coming."
Down through the very centre of the beam, appearing once more to have actually no point of support, there dropped a wide platform, over one edge of which a man's head protruded. At lightning speed it fell towards the wreckage, halting abruptly within two feet of the water as the man signalled. Then it dropped a few inches lower, while a hand was stretched out to Hawkins.
"Come aboard," that same cheerful, brisk voice commanded. "Where's the officer?"
"Here, sir," shouted Dicky.
"How many men are you responsible for?"
"Six, sir; and this fellow lashed to the wreckage."
"Good! Then we'll soon finish this business. Now, on you come."
Very rapidly was the crew of the pinnace transferred to this strange platform, and following them the unconscious figure of the man they had come out to rescue.
"Hold tight!" came the order.
"Tight it is, sir," responded Hawkins.
"Then hoist."
The stranger signalled. Dicky felt the platform move upward. Then it shot towards the sky, while of a sudden the beam died out, leaving them all in darkness. It sent a chill down his back. Even the jovial and careless midshipman was impressed by the uncouthness of this adventure. Where was this stranger bearing them? What was to be the end of this amazing rescue?
CHAPTER IV
The Great Airship
"Hold tight all! Don't move or you will make the platform sway, and then it will be a job to keep your footing. Ah – up we go!"
The cheery individual, who had dropped so suddenly as if from the sky, bringing help to Dicky and his crew, called out loudly, once he had contrived with their help to cut asunder the lashings that bound the unconscious figure of the man they had come to rescue, and had lifted him aboard the platform which had borne him from aloft. He signalled at once, and then, as we have recorded, the platform shot upward at tremendous speed, while the brilliant light shedding its beams upon them went out of a sudden.
"I'd as soon be aloft in a gale on a dirty dark night, so I would," the bulky Hurst began to grumble, while he clutched at the smooth floor of the platform, and finding no hold there, sought for the edge and gripped it. For all had sunk upon their knees, standing being almost out of the question, and in any case hardly a position to attract any of the company. "There ain't no sayin' where this here platform ends and where it begins, and if you was to fall where'd you go to!"
"Where? Davy Jones's locker!" laughed Hawkins, though his hoarse tones told how the situation impressed him. "Right slick down to Davy Jones. Just you quit grumblin', my lad, and get a hold on with your eyebrows."
"Silence, men!" came sharply from Dicky. The precarious position in which he found himself, his unusual surroundings, and the uncertainty of the future making him quite irritable. "Now, sir, will you kindly explain where you are taking us. And first, let me thank you for turning up just in the nick of time."
"Not at all! Not at all! Delighted to be able to lend a helping hand to some of my own service."
"Navy, sir?" asked Dicky, though he felt sure of that fact from the very first.
"What else, my lad? Commander Jackson, at present engaged in experimental work."
"Aeronautics?" ventured Dicky.
"Perhaps; you'll see. Hold tight! Now that the light has been switched off it makes this platform none too safe. That is, for anyone not a sailor. Ah! They're slowing down the motor. We'll be aboard in a jiffy."
Their upward flight had indeed taken but a matter of a minute, and already they were hundreds of feet above the sea. Not that they could tell that for certain. But every one of the rescued crew had the uncomfortable feeling that they were poised high in the air, with but this flimsy platform between them and destruction. However, a few seconds later they became aware of a dull, droning noise, hitherto inaudible, while the speed of their strange lift had slowed considerably.
"Keep your hands off the edge of the platform!" shouted their rescuer. "Ah! Here we are! Come aboard, Mr. Provost."
The change from darkness to brilliant light was positively stupefying, even more than it had been in the reverse direction. For now, as Dicky and his crew crouched on the platform, fearful of moving to right or left lest they should lose their footing, there was a gentle bump, a flooring above their heads lifted, and in an instant they found themselves in a wide gallery blazing with light and occupied by three individuals. Another second and the platform came to a rest on a level with the flooring of this gallery, while a well-groomed, white-headed man stepped forward to greet them.
"Welcome!" he cried.
