To the right, not a hundred yards away, rose Saint Edward's tower, mellowed now to clear orange by the lapse of three-quarters of a century; to the left a flight of buildings, of an architectural design which he did not understand, but which gave him a sense of extreme satisfaction; in front towered the masses of Buckingham Palace as he seemed always to have known it.
The platform of the flying ship on which he stood hung in dock at least three hundred feet high above the roads beneath.

He had examined the whole vessel just now from stem to stern, and had found it vaguely familiar; he determined to examine it again presently.

There was no gas-bag to sustain it--so much he had noticed--though he could not say whence he had the idea that gas-bags were usual.

But it seemed to him as if the notion of airships did carry some faint association to his mind, although far less distinct than that of motor-cars and even trains.

He had enquired of his companion an hour or two earlier as they had discussed their journey as to whether they would not go by train and steamer, and had received the answer that these were never used except for very short journeys.
Here, then, he stood and stared.
It was very quiet up here; but he listened with considerable curiosity to the strange humming sound that filled the air, rising and falling, as of a beehive.