Turber interrupted: "About the sloop, Atwood! Who cares about Mercer?"
"Gad! You can brush me aside, but I've had a hellish time."
"All right, Tony, I believe you."
"It's well you should. I had thought if you did not come tonight, by tomorrow Mercer's troops might be here. And where would I be? Not here—that I promise you. As it is, Sir William does not think any too much of me. He called me somewhat of an ugly name last week. I think I am insulted."
"Well, you didn't get the gold?"
"No. The sloop got in—ninety days from the Bermudas in weather of the vilest sort. And then the blockade—but it got through. I have Somerset's letter. Your money was spent—"
Turber laughed. "I fancy it was!"
"—spent in what I warrant must have been no less than a digging up of all the beach on Cooper's Island. Treasure there was none." He added: "I did what I could. I hope this is your last passing, egad, it had better be, and take me with you. They'll be sending me on a still longer journey if I stay around here."
They took him aboard. The aero hung over Staten Island and sped forward again in Time. Through the 1800's. The 1900's. And then, while the huge city grew under it, sped on five hundred years farther. It took only half an hour.
Turber said: "We are here." The aero had settled—a phantom settling down in a shadowy city. It rested on that same rise of ground on Staten Island which in 1945 held the Turber Hospital.