CHAPTER X.THE RIVAL AEROPLANE.
CHAPTER X.
THE RIVAL AEROPLANE.
In the meanwhile, the exciting race against time had resulted in overheating the Golden Butterfly’s cylinders, and a stop of an hour or more at the junction was necessary. Thus it was quite dark when the young Prescotts were ready to make for home. A small crowd had gathered to see them start, for there was a little community of houses scattered about the junction.
They decided to go the way they had come, namely, to follow the tracks to the crossing and then turn off for home. It was their first experience in night piloting, and when they were ready Peggy switched on the tiny shaded bulb that illuminated the compass. This done, she started the engine, and the Golden Butterfly shot into the air under its reduced load with an almost buoyant sense of freedom.
The crossing was reached in several minutes less than it had taken them to reach the junction on the going trip. Peggy turned off as she marked the glowing lights beneath her, and presently the Golden Butterfly was skimming along above dark woodlands and gloom-enshrouded meadows. There was something awe inspiring about this night flying. Above them the canopy of the stars stretched like a mantle spangled with silver sequins. Below, the earth showed as a black void.
They were flying slowly to avoid overheating the cylinders again. Suddenly a bright glare shot up against the night from below, and a little ahead of them. It died down almost instantly, only to flash up once more.
“Gid Gibbons’s forge!” exclaimed Roy. “Let’s fly over by there and see what he’s doing.”
“All right,” agreed Peggy; “ever since my visit there I have felt a great interest in Mr. Gibbons. But we’ll have to make haste, there’s some wind coming before long.”
The girl was right. A filmy mist, like a veil, had spread over the stars, dimming their bright lamps, and a wind was beginning to sigh in the trees under them.
But they had not reached Gid Gibbons’s place, or rather a location above it, when an astonishing thing happened. From the ground a red light and a green light set at some distance apart began to rise. Up and up they climbed through the night in long, swinging circles. Between them was dimly visible the dark outlines of some fabric.
“An aeroplane!” cried the boy and girl, simultaneously.
“Fan Harding’s aeroplane!” cried Peggy, an instant later.
“And—oh, Roy—it can fly!” she added, admiringly.
“No doubt of that,” was the rather grudging reply, as the red and green lights soared up and up.
“Keep clear of it, sis, we don’t want a collision,” warned Roy.
“Oh, I’d like to get close and see it,” breathed Peggy. “I never would have credited Fan Harding with being able to do it.”
“Nor I,” exclaimed Roy, his dislike of Fan Harding giving place to admiration—genuine admiration—of the other’s ingenuity.
“Well, he’s beaten me out at my own particular specialty,” he exclaimed presently, after an interval in which the lights had climbed far above the Golden Butterfly. “That’s a better machine than ours, Peg.”
“I guess we’ll have to admit that,” rejoined the girl, with a sigh. “I wonder if he’ll enter for the prize?”
“Of course. With a craft like that he’d be foolish if he didn’t. Odd that he’s trying it out at night, though.”
“I suppose he wants to keep secret what it can do and then spring it on an astonishedworld,” rejoined Peggy. “Good gracious!” she broke off hurriedly.
The aeroplane had given a sudden lurch, and at the same instant a sharp puff of wind struck them both in the face. Peggy’s hands fairly flashed among her levers, and she averted what might have been a bad predicament.
Involuntarily, at the same instant, Roy had glanced up at the other aeroplane to see how it was faring. To his astonishment the lights did not seem to waver.
“Wow, Peg!” he cried, “that puff didn’t even bother Fan Harding’s craft. It was uncanny to see her weather it.”
“There’s something uncanny about it altogether,” sniffed Peggy; “it’s a regular phantom airship.”
“That’s just what it is,” agreed Roy, “but I’m afraid it is a substantial enough phantom to carry off that $5,000 prize.”
Another puff prevented Peggy from replying just then. Once more the Golden Butterfly careenedviolently, and then, under Peggy’s skillful handling, righted herself. But this time the puff was followed by a steady rush of wind.
“Better turn, Peg, before it gets any worse,” advised Roy; “we’re off our course now.”
“I—I tried to,” exclaimed Peggy, desperately, “but the wind won’t let me. I don’t dare to.”
“We must,” exclaimed Roy, with a serious note in his voice; “if this wind freshens much more we won’t be able to turn at all.”
He leaned forward and took the wheel from his sister. But the instant he tried to steer the aeroplane round, the wind, rising under one wing tip, careened her to a perilous angle.
“No go,” he said; “we’ve got to keep on going.”
“But where can we land?” asked Peggy, a little catch in her voice.
“We’ll have to take chances on that,” decided Roy. “It would be suicidal to try to buck this wind.”
The breeze had now freshened till it was singingan Aeolian song in every wire and brace of the Golden Butterfly. Brother and sister could feel the stout fabric vibrate under the strain of the blast.
The aeroplane was moving swiftly now. But it was the toy of the wind, which grew stronger every minute. The dark landscape beneath fairly flew by under them. Neither of them thought to look back at the red and green lights in the sky behind them.
All at once, Roy, who had leaned over his sister’s shoulder and glanced at the compass, gave a sharp cry.
“We’ve got to turn, sis,” he said, in a tense, sharp voice.
“What do you mean, Roy? Are we in any very serious danger?”
The girl’s voice shook nervously in response to the anxiety expressed in her brother’s tone.
“Danger!” echoed Roy. “Girlie, we are being blown out to sea!”
Blown out to sea! The words held a real poignant terror for Peggy.
“Oh, Roy, we must do something!” she cried, helplessly.
“Yes, but what? We can’t, we daren’t turn about. The machine would tip like a bucket. No, we must keep on and trust to luck.”
Peggy shuddered. Hurtled along in the wind-driven darkness, brother and sister sat in silence, waiting for the first warning that they were approaching the sea.
In the blackness it was impossible to see anything ahead, and the starlight, which, dim as it was, might have helped, had been overcast by a filmy covering of light clouds.
Once or twice as they were hurried helplessly along, the propeller beating desperately against the wind, they saw, far below them, the cheerful lights of some farmhouse. Further off a glare against the sky indicated the lights of Sandy Bay.
How they wished that they were safe andsound at home, as they were blown onward by the wind, going faster and faster every minute.
Roy, his pulses beating hard, and every nerve at tension, had taken the wheel from his sister, even at the risk of careening the aeroplane when they shifted their positions. Every now and then he tried to turn ever so little, but each time a tip at a dangerous angle warned him not to attempt such a thing.
All at once Peggy uttered a shrill cry.
“Oh, Roy! The sea!”
Above the screeching of the wind and the hum of the motor they could now hear another sound, the thunder of the surf on the beach.
Straining his eyes ahead Roy could see now the white gleam of the breakers as they broke in showers of spray on the seashore. A real sense of terror, such as he had never felt before, clutched at his heart as he heard and saw.
But controlling his voice, he turned to Peggy.
“Be brave, little sister,” he said; “we’ll pull through all right.”
Peggy said nothing in response. She dared not trust her voice to speak just at that moment. White faced and with staring, fixed eyes, she sat motionless and silent, as the Golden Butterfly was driven out above the roaring surf and the tossing waves. To her alarmed imagination the sea seemed to be reaching up hungry arms for the two daring young aviators.
Suddenly she was half blinded by a brilliant flash of light which bathed the aeroplane in a flood of radiance. The next instant it was gone, but they could see the great shaft of radiance sweeping around the compass.
“It’s the light!” cried Roy. “The Rocky Point light!”