The upper deck ended in a railing, below which protruded, from the level of the lower deck, the prow proper of the boat.  Upon this prow, in a small compartment of which the roof, as well as the walls, was of hardened glass, stood the steersman amid his wheels.  But the wheels were unlike anything that the bewildered man who looked down had ever dreamed of.  First, they were not more than six inches in diameter; and next, they were arranged, like notes on a keyboard, with their edges towards him, with the whole set curved round him in a semicircle.

“Those to right and left,” explained the priest, “control the planes on either side; those in front, on the left, control the engines and the gas supply; and on the right, the tail of the boat.  Watch him, and you’ll see.  We’re just starting.”

As he spoke three bells sounded from below, followed, after a pause, by a fourth.  The steersman straightened himself as the first rang out and glanced round him; and upon the fourth, bent himself suddenly over the key board, like a musician addressing himself to a piano.

For the first instant Monsignor was conscious of a slight swaying motion, which resolved itself presently into a faint sensation of constriction on his temples, but no more.  Then this passed, and as he glanced away again from the steersman, who was erect once more, his look happened to fall over the edge of the boat.  He grasped his friend convulsively.

“Look,” he said, “what’s happened?”

“Yes, we’re off,” said the priest sedately.

Beneath them, on either side, there now stretched itself an almost illimitable and amazingly beautiful bird’s-eye view of a lighted city, separated from them by what seemed an immeasurable gulf.  From the enormous height up to which they had soared the city looked like a complicated flat map, of which the patches were dark and the dividing lines rivers of soft fire.  This stretched practically to the horizon on all sides; the light toned down at the edges into a misty luminosity, but as the bewildered watcher stared in front of him, he saw how directly in their course there slid toward them two great patches of dark, divided by a luminous stream in the middle.

“What is it?  What is it?” he stammered.

The priest seemed not to notice his agitation; he just passed his hand quietly into the trembling man’s elbow.

“Yes,” he said, “there are houses all the way to Brighton now, of course, and we go straight down the track.  We shall take in passengers at Brighton, I think.”

There was a step behind them.

“Good evening, Monsignor,” said a voice.  “It’s a lovely night.”

The prelate turned round, covered with confusion, and saw a man in uniform saluting him deferentially.

“Ah! captain,” slipped in the priest.  “So we’re crossing with you, are we?”

“That’s it, father.  The Michael line’s running this week.”