"In any case," he thought, "I'll be as independent as I can. I don't want to come to loggerheads with the pater, but goodness only knows how he'll take it. If I can have a quiet chat with him before he learns the official version of the row, I may be able to explain matters with a certain degree of satisfaction. After that I'll go abroad, and get an appointment under one of the South American governments. There will be plenty of scope in that direction."
At Suez the liner received a batch of English mails, and, as usual, there was a great demand for newspapers to supplement the meagre details of the world's doings as received by wireless.
Dacres hurriedly scanned the columns of four successive weeks of the journal, but to his relief he saw no mention of his resignation being reported. That gave him hopes of being able to be first in the field as far as his parent was concerned.
Having assured himself on this point he proceeded systematically to wade through the news with the zest that only those who have been cut off from home ties know how to appreciate.
Presently his eye caught sight of a heading, "The mysterious airship again."
"H'm, this sounds interesting," he soliloquized, for anything in connexion with aviation appealed to him. When his services for the Naval Flying Wing were declined the refusal hit him far harder than his being asked to withdraw from his Majesty's Service.
"They say 'again,' I notice. I wonder for how long this airship has been claiming the attention of the great British public? It's a pity I've been unable to see the first account of its appearance. Seems like starting a book at the sixth chapter."
Settling himself in a comfortable deck-chair Dacres was soon lost to his surroundings in the account of the remarkable exploits of an airship of entirely new design. It was seen within a few hours at places as far apart as Newcastle and Plymouth, and Holyhead and Canterbury. Although the eye-witnesses' accounts varied considerably in detail the general description was sufficiently unanimous to prove conclusively that the airship was not a creation of an excited imagination.
It was agreed that the airship was of immense length and of exceptional speed. She invariably flew at a great altitude. Her appearance resembled that of a lead pencil pointed at one end, but the observers were unable to state whether there were planes, cars, and other appendages. There was none of that gently see-sawing motion of the British military and naval dirigibles: she flew as steadily as a seaplane on a calm day, and created a far greater impression of speed.
Near Newcastle she was spotted by a pair of belated motorists who were travelling over a road that follows the old Roman wall between Chollerford and Heddon. It was a moonlight night, although the sky was frequently obscured by drifting clouds. While brought up to make good a slight defect one of the motorists noticed a dark object overhead and called his companion's attention to it. Both simultaneously expressed their opinion that it was an airship, while one of the men found by extending his arm that the extremities of the craft coincided with the length between his outstretched little finger and thumb, while its breadth was roughly half the thickness of the nail joint of the same finger. Taking the breadth to be forty feet it was reasonable to suppose that the length of the airship was nearly thirty times that dimension, or one thousand two hundred feet. The airship was then travelling rapidly in a westerly direction, the time being 1.30 a.m.