Then telegraph and radio, at the suggestion of Jeter, instructed the entire civilized world to turn its eyes skyward to watch for the return of Kress.
The world obeyed that day ... and the next ... and the next!
But Kress did not return; nor, so far as the world knew, did any or all of his great airplane.
The world itself began to have a feeling of dread—that grew.
CHAPTER II
The Ghostly Columns
Franz Kress had been gone a week, when all the world knew that he couldn't possibly have stayed aloft that length of time. Yet no word was received from him, no report received from any part of the world that he had returned. Various islands which he might have reached were scoured for traces of him. The lighter vessels of most of the navies of the world joined in the search to no avail. Kress had merely mounted into the sky and vanished.
The world's last word from him had been a few words on the radio-telephone:
"Have reached sixty thousand feet and—"