“The bridges are fixed,” remarked the priest.  “They’re on the lower deck, of course.  Pretty prompt, aren’t they?”

The prelate stood, staring with all his eyes; now at the motionless platform that hung alongside, now at the gulf below with the fairy lights strewed like stars and nebulae at its bottom.  It seemed impossible to realize that this station in the air was not the normal level, and the earth not a strange foreign body that attended on it.  There came up on deck presently a dozen figures or so, carrying wraps, and talking.  It was amazing to him that they could behave with such composure.  Two were even quarrelling in subdued voices. . . .

It was hardly five minutes before the three bells rang again; and before the fourth sounded, suddenly he saw drop beneath, like a stone into a pit, the huge immovable platform that just now he had conceived of as solid as the earth from which it had risen.  Down and down it went, swaying ever so slightly from side to side, diminishing as it went; but before the motion had ceased the fourth bell rang, and he clutched the rail to steady himself as the ship he was on soared again with a strange intoxicating motion.  The next instant, as he glanced over the edge, he saw that they were far out over the blackness of the sea.

“I think we might go below for a bit,” said the priest in his ear.

There was no kind of difficulty in descending the stairs; there was practically no oscillation of any kind in this still and windless summer night, and the two came down easily and looked round the lower deck.

This was far more crowded with figures:  there were padded seats fully occupied running round all the sides, beneath the enormous continuous windows.  In the centre, sternwards, ran a narrow refreshment bar, where a score of men were standing to refresh themselves.  Forward of the farther stairs (down the well of which they had seen the engineer’s head), by which they were standing, the deck was closed in, as with cabins.

“Like to see the oratory?” asked Father Jervis.

“The what?”

“Oratory.  The long-journey boats, that have chaplains, carry the Blessed Sacrament, of course; but there is only a little oratory on these continental lines.”

Monsignor followed him, unable to speak, up the central passage running forwards; through a pair of heavy curtains; and there, to his amazed eyes, appeared a small altar, a hanging lamp, and an image of St. Michael.

“But it’s astounding!” whispered the prelate, watching a man and a woman at their prayers.

“It’s common sense, isn’t it?” smiled the priest.  “Why, the custom began a hundred years ago.”

“No!”

“Indeed it did!  I learnt it from one of the little guide-books they give one on these boats.  A company called the Great Western had mosaic pictures of the patron saint of each boat in the saloon.  And their locomotives, too, were called after saints’ names.  It’s only plain common sense, if you come to think of it.”