“Ship’s agoin’ to pass us in the night, buddy,” he called through the aid of the indispensable earphones. “Yeou kin lamp the light straight ahead naow.”
“Yes, I’d already noticed the same, partner,” came steady Jack’s answer, as if he were not in the least disturbed, or excited by the occurrence.
“Gee whiz! but I shore hopes we doant meet head on, an’ crash,” ventured Perk, really to coax his chum to express an opinion, and thus reassure him.
“No danger of that happening, old scout!” snapped Jack; “but I’ll veer off to starboard a bit, to make doubly sure against a possible collision. Strike up our cabin light, boy, so’s to put them on their guard.”
Of course they could not catch the slightest sound to corroborate their opinion, since their own ship was making so much racket. The light came closer and closer; at the same time Jack felt positive the other aerial craft must be following his own tactics looking to safety, and steering somewhat to the right, as discretion demanded.
Perk had snatched up a kerosene lantern and hastily lighted the wick. This he now moved up and down; then swung the same completely around his head, as though he thus meant to give the other pilot a signal in the line of fellowship and aerial courtesy.
Thus the two ships passed not three hundred feet apart, yet only vaguely seen by watchful eyes. Then they were swallowed up in the gloom of the night, the moon being under a passing cloud at the time.
“Fancy aour meetin’ in space,” Perk was saying, as though rather awed by such a circumstance; “it couldn’t happen again in a month o’ blue moons, aour comin’ to grips thisaway, with millions o’ miles all ’raound us, an’ nawthin’ but chance to guide both pilots.”
“You’re on the wrong track again, partner,” Jack hastened to tell him. “Chance had little to do with this meeting; but that chain of brilliant flash beacons was wholly responsible. Just like two trains passing on a double-track railroad line—both airships were following the same marked course, and couldn’t hardly miss meeting each other. In these latter days flying has become so systematized that the element of chance has been almost wholly eliminated from the game.”
That remark kept Perk silent for some little time, the subject thus brought up was so vast, so filled with tremendous possibilities, he found himself wrestling with it as the minutes crept on.