Rebecca uttered one short scream and fled up to their bed-room. She had seen the impossible. Her sister Phœbe with her face buried in a mug of ale!
CHAPTER VIII
HOW FRANCIS BACON CHEATED THE BAILIFFS
It was at about this time that Copernicus Droop finally awakened. He lay perfectly still for a minute or two, wondering where he was and what had happened. Then he began to mutter to himself.
"Machinery's stopped, so we're on dry land," he said. Then, starting up on one elbow, he listened intently.
Within the air-ship all was perfect silence, but from without there came in faintly occasional symptoms of life—the bark of a dog, a loud laugh, the cry of a child.
Droop slowly came to his feet and gazed about. A faint gleam of daylight found its way past the closed shutters. He raised the blinds and blinked as he gazed out into a perfect thicket of trees and shrubbery, beyond which here and there he thought he could distinguish a high brick wall.
"Well, we're in the country, anyhow!" he muttered.
He turned and consulted the date indicator in the ceiling.