Then, with all the ceremonial and pomp of the East, the Maharajah of Bangapore was welcomed aboard the luxurious air-liner, and, accompanied by his personal attendants, he was shown with much obsequiousness to his private saloon. His baggage, containing treasures worth a king's ransom, was likewise transferred, under the supervision of his chamberlain, from the ground to his suite of apartments.
The clock in the palace of the Great Mogul in the old city of Delhi strikes twelve, and the captain's voice is heard once more, as he speaks from the rear gondola:--
"All ready?"
"Yes, sir, all clear!"
A button is pressed and the water ballast tanks discharge their cargo to lighten the ship, and then swiftly comes the final order:--
"Let go!"
And as the cables are slipped from the mooring tower, the light gangway is drawn back, the crowd down below cheer, and the giant airship backs out, carried by the force of the wind alone till she is well clear of the station. Then her engines open up gradually. She turns until her nose points almost due west, then slips away on her four thousand miles' journey over many a classic land, desert, forest and sea towards the centre of the world's greatest empire.
About four o'clock that afternoon, as Judge Jefferson sat and talked with his friend Colonel Wilson in one of the rear gondolas where smoking was permitted, he remarked that this was his seventh trip home to England by the aerial route, and declared that he could well spend the rest of his lifetime in such a pleasant mode of travel.
"There's no fatigue whatever," he added; "nothing of the jolt and jar which you get in the railway carriage. As for the journey by sea, I was so ill during my last voyage that I simply couldn't face the sea again. A storm at sea is of all things the most uncomfortable. If we meet with a storm on the air-route we can either go above it or pass on one side, as most storms are only local affairs."
"Not to speak of the time that is wasted by land or sea-travel," added the colonel.