This plane was revolutionary. It was, to begin with, carrying a vast load. Kress was taking every conceivable kind of instrument he fancied he might need. There was food as for a long siege.
Jeter shuddered. Why had he thought of the word "siege"?
The great load would be carried without difficulty, however, for this plane was little short of a miracle. Among other things, Kress would be able, in case of fatigue, to set his controls—as at sea a pilot may sometimes lash his wheel—and sleep while his plane mounted on up, and up, in great spirals.
Up beyond fifty-five thousand he hoped to attain a thousand miles an hour velocity. That meant, say, breakfast in New York, lunch in London, tea in Novo-Sibirsk, dinner in Yokohama—as soon as the myriad planes which would follow this one in design and capabilities took off on the trail Kress was blazing.
Jeter sighed at the thought. For several years he had explored little-known sections of the world. He had visited every country. He had entered every port that could be reached from the ocean—and all the time he had felt the Earth shrinking before the gods of speed. The time would soon come when everything on Earth would be commonplace. Then man's urge to go places he hadn't seen before would take him away from the Earth entirely—when he would begin the task of making even the universe shrink to appease the gods of speed. Somehow the thought was a melancholy one.
Now the crowd gave back as Kress speeded up his motor, indicating that he would soon take off. Jeter and Eyer studied the outward outline of Kress' craft. It looked exactly like a black beetle which has just alighted after flight, but has not yet quite hidden its wings. It was black, probably because it was believed a black object could be followed easier from the Earth.
There would be many anxious eyes watching that spiraling ship as it grew smaller and smaller, climbing upward.
With a rush, and a spinning of dust in the slipstream, the ship was away. It lifted as easily as a bird and mounted with great speed. It was capable of climbing in wide spirals at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
A great sigh burst from the thousands who had come to watch history made. For solid hours now they would watch the plane climb, growing smaller, becoming a speck, vanishing. Many curious ones would stay right here until Kress returned, fearful of being cheated of a great thrill. For Kress was to land right here when, and if, he had conquered the stratosphere.