about seven o'clock in the evening
In twenty-four hours or so you will be landed on Spanish soil and left to your own devices . Meanwhile we shall make you as comfortable as the circumstances permit . '' The two Russian officers bowed their acknowledgments , and Arnold gave the signal for the flotilla to proceed . It was then about seven o'clock in the evening . Flying at the rate of a hundred miles an hour , the squadron crossed the mouth of the Moray Firth trending to the westward until they passed over Thurso , and then took a westerly course to Rockall Island , four hundred miles to the west . Here they met the two other air-ships which had been despatched from Aeria with extra power-cylinders and munitions of war in case they had been needed for a prolonged campaign . The cylinders , which had been exhausted on board the _ Ithuriel _ and her three consorts , were replaced , and then the whole squadron rose into the air from one of the peaks of Rockall Island and winged its way southward to the north-western coast of Spain .