Margaret Oliphant obtained very unsatisfactory answers to the questions to which this remark gave rise, and concluded that in some way Raymond had not hit it with his host.
Mr. Greatorex would doubtless have been much surprised had he seen the letter which Lord Langside wrote to his son a few days later.
“My dear Ray,” wrote the Prime Minister,—
“Are you conspiring against me, like Absalom? Mr. Greatorex can’t do me much harm on a yacht. He won’t see a newspaper for a month! Hope you’ll enjoy yourself.
“Your affectionate
“Dad.”
Oliphant showed this letter to no one. But the day he received it, he went a long and tedious journey by train across country to the little port of Horleston. He reached home very late, but in much better spirits than might have been expected after such a tiresome experience of slow trains.
CHAPTER V—OFF THE BARBARY COAST
The week was filled with the bustle of preparation. The airship was divided into sections, the motors and the framework taken to pieces, and the whole packed into large light crates and conveyed to the coast on country carts, their arrival at Horleston being so timed that everything could be put on board very early in the morning. Besides the crew, the company consisted only of Mr. Greatorex, Tom Dorrell, and Timothy Ball.
Before the vessel put off, a custom house officer came aboard, and showed himself somewhat inquisitive as to the meaning of the strange platform newly rigged on the after deck, and as to the nature of the bulky packages. Mr. Greatorex explained that they contained a cooling apparatus which he was taking out to Morocco on behalf of an acquaintance, adding that by all accounts the country was pretty hot in all respects. With this explanation the officer had to be content. Clearly the parts of the airship did not come within the description of explosives, firearms or other articles on which he might exercise his powers of detention. Still, being by training suspicious, he was evidently by no means satisfied, and left the yacht somewhat unwillingly.