altogether.

He said something to Kurt about his head, went up the steep
ladder from the swaying little gallery into the airship again,
and so, as if it were a refuge, to bed.

5

Bert slept for a time, and then his sleep was broken by dreams.
Mostly he was fleeing from formless terrors down an interminable
passage in an airship--a passage paved at first with ravenous
trap-doors, and then with openwork canvas of the most careless
description.

"Gaw!" said Bert, turning over after his seventh fall through
infinite space that night.

He sat up in the darkness and nursed his knees. The progress of
the airship was not nearly so smooth as a balloon; he could feel
a regular swaying up, up, up and then down, down, down, and the
throbbing and tremulous quiver of the engines.

His mind began to teem with memories--more memories and more.

Through them, like a struggling swimmer in broken water, came the
perplexing question, what am I to do to-morrow? To-morrow, Kurt
had told him, the Prince's secretary, the Graf Von Winterfeld,
would come to him and discuss his flying-machine, and then he
would see the Prince. He would have to stick it out now that he
was Butteridge, and sell his invention. And then, if they found