It had taken nearly two hours to climb the crater, but the descent occupied barely twenty minutes.
Smothered in clouds of pumice dust, continually dodging enormous boulders that rolled down the mountain side, the officers of the Olive Branch and their captives pursued their headlong descent, and on gaining the beach they found that a boat had already been despatched to bring them off to the ship.
"What has happened, gentlemen?" asked Captain Brookes as the party gained the quarter-deck. "I was watching you through my glasses, and could see that you were having an encounter of some sort."
Briefly the "first luff" made his report. The captain's brows clouded.
"This is bad news," he remarked. "Whatever design these people have against Great Britain is evidently a secret. I've been in communication by wireless with our Swanage agent, and he assures us that there is no sign of international complications. However, it's lucky you nipped this little plot in the bud, for I have no doubt that that airship would deliberately violate all the etiquettes of neutrality. I'll ask our prisoners a few questions."
"I am Hans von Rippach," replied the man who was evidently the senior officer of the airship.
"Herr Hans von Rippach, I salute you," rejoined Captain Brookes, without betraying the fact that he understood the nature of the foreigner's reply, though he shrewdly suspected that his prisoner was a member of the Royal House of a powerful European State. "Might I inquire the reason why you proposed to attack my vessel treacherously in neutral waters?"
"I refuse to offer explanations to a pirate," replied the prisoner, rudely.
Finding that it was useless to attempt to gain further information, Captain Brookes ordered the captives to be removed and confined in a cabin under an armed guard.
"Couldn't we have a smack at the airship, sir?" asked Lieutenant Sinclair. "A six-pounder could be taken ashore and dragged up to yonder ridge without much trouble."