"And now we turn our faces homewards. This is the last lap," said Joe, when a round of festivities had been enjoyed in various Canadian cities. "We have proved this ship to be capable of a world-circling trip. She has safely ridden through tempests which would have destroyed a Zeppelin. Let us now return to London, there to show the people of England that we are still in existence, and there to hand over this ship to the authorities."
It was with light hearts that they sent the vessel eastward. Hovering for a while over the historical city of Quebec, where French and English had once contested matters, and where their sons now live in amity together, Joe sent the aerial monster scudding over the length of the mighty River St. Laurence. Then they sailed above the vast Gulf of that name, and swept seaward between Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. It was in that neighbourhood that the lookout man sighted a tiny speck upon the ocean.
"Boat adrift, sir, I think," he reported. "I can see a man waving something."
Joe fastened his glasses upon the spot, a movement which the Commander copied.
"Man adrift on a piece of wreckage," sang out the latter. "Waving his shirt as a signal. Lucky for him that we were crossing."
They steered above the castaway and sent Dick down upon the lift, with Alec and Hurst to help him. Then they hoisted them again and brought aboard a man seemingly in the last stages of exhaustion. He was almost speechless with thirst and black with exposure. A beard of ten days' growth was on his face, while his hair was long and matted.
"Fisherman," he gasped. "Driven off the land. Been drifting to and fro for days, and without food and drink for many. Water! water!"
Aboard the airship this unlucky wight received the kindest attention, and indeed was soon snugly curled up in a bunk in the men's quarters. No one suspected he was other than he pretended to be, an unfortunate fisherman from the shores of Nova Scotia. No one aboard recognized the man as Adolf Fruhmann. But it was he, Carl Reitberg's rascally lieutenant, and once more crew and passengers and airship were in imminent danger.