A Honeymoon in Space | Page 2

again the mysterious shape crossed the disc of
the sun, always vertically as though, whatever it might be, it was
steering a direct course from the sun to the ship, its apparent rising and
falling being due really to the dipping of her bows into the swells.
"Well, Mr. Charteris, what's the trouble?" said the Skipper as he
reached the bridge. "Nothing wrong, I hope? Have you sighted a
derelict, or what? Ay, what in hell's that!"
His hands went up to his eyes and he stared for a few moments at the
pale yellow oblate shape of the sun.
At this moment the St. Louis' head dipped again, and the Captain saw
something like a black line swiftly drawn across the sun from bottom to
top.
"That's what I wanted to call your attention to, sir," said the Second in a
low tone. "I first noticed it crossing the sun as it rose through the mist. I
thought it was a spot of dirt on my glasses, but it has crossed the sun
several times since then, and for some minutes seemed to remain dead
in the middle of it. Later on it got quite a lot larger, and whatever it is
it's approaching us pretty rapidly. You see it's quite plain to the naked
eye now."
By this time several of the crew and of the early loungers on deck had
also caught sight of the strange thing which seemed to be hanging and
swinging between the sky and the sea. People dived below for their
glasses, knocked at their friends' state-room doors and told them to get
up because something was flying towards the ship through the air; and
in a very few minutes there were hundreds of passengers on deck in all
varieties of early morning costume, and scores of glasses, held to
anxious eyes, were being directed ahead.
The glasses, however, soon became unnecessary, for the passengers
had scarcely got up on deck before the mysterious object to the
eastward at length took definite shape, and as it did so mouths were
opened as well as eyes, for the owners of the eyes and mouths beheld

just then the strangest sight that travellers by sea or land had ever seen.
Within the distance of about a mile it swung round at right angles to the
steamer's course with a rapidity which plainly showed that it was
entirely obedient to the control of a guiding intelligence, and hundreds
of eager eyes on board the liner saw, sweeping down from the
grey-blue of the early morning sky, a vessel whose hull seemed to be
constructed of some metal which shone with a pale, steely lustre.
It was pointed at both ends, the forward end being shaped something
like a spur or ram. At the after end were two flickering, interlacing
circles of a glittering greenish-yellow colour, apparently formed by two
intersecting propellers driven at an enormous velocity. Behind these
was a vertical fan of triangular shape. The craft appeared to be
flat-bottomed, and for about a third of her length amidships the upper
half of her hull was covered with a curving, domelike roof of glass.
"She's an air-ship of some sort, there's no doubt about that," said the
Captain, "so I guess the great problem has got solved at last. And yet it
ain't a balloon, because it's coming against the wind, and it's nothing of
the æroplane sort neither, because it hasn't planes or kites or any fixings
of that kind. Still it's made of something like metal and glass, and it
must take a lot of keeping up. It's travelling at a pretty healthy speed
too. Getting on for a hundred miles an hour, I should guess. Ah! he's
going to speak us! Hope he's honest."
Everybody on board the St. Louis was up on deck by this time, and the
excitement rose to fever-heat as the strange vessel swept down towards
them from the middle sky, passed them like a flash of light, swung
round the stern, and ranged up alongside to starboard some twenty feet
from the bridge rail.
She was about a hundred and twenty feet long, with some twenty feet
of depth and thirty of beam, and the Captain and many of his officers
and passengers were very much relieved to find that, as far as could be
seen, she carried no weapons of offence.
As she ranged up alongside, a sliding door opened in the glass-domed

roof amidships, just opposite to the end of the St. Louis' bridge. A tall,
fair-haired, clean-featured man, of about thirty, in grey flannels, tipped
up his golf cap with his thumb, and said:
"Good morning, Captain! You remember me, I suppose? Had a fine
passage, so far? I thought I should meet you somewhere about