"My! my! Goodness gracious!" ejaculated their host, in a great fuss. "Young men, I was not thinking. Will you ever pardon me for this transgression of etiquette?"
The flyers smilingly hastened to assure both their friends that they had not lost their appetites in the least; that they really had enjoyed every morsel of food and information passed out. They remained to chat long enough to convince the lady and gentleman of this fact, and then took their departure. They had actually spent a most entertaining hour, one which they would not have missed for a good deal.
At eight-fifty local time the Sky-Bird took off for her long hop to Apia, principal city of Upolu, an island of the Samoan group. It was the beginning of their long flight across the big Pacific, an ocean so wide, so fraught with perils, that no aircraft had ever before attempted to negotiate it. Some eight thousand miles away over those great waters lay Panama, their goal. Would they reach it ahead of their rivals? Would they reach it within their schedule of ten days?
To these two queries in their minds, our stout-hearted, young friends answered doggedly and determinedly, "Yes!" Fortune might frown upon them, it is true; but if so they would face her smilingly, with confidence, with that pertinacity for which Americans are famous, and try to make her look pleasant, too! They felt that they must win; that they would win. And yet they left Port Darwin handicapped by being fully three hours behind their rivals.
As they wheeled over the town they waved a last farewell to the hundreds below, whose forms they could just make out in the fast-gathering darkness. Then, turning off straight east, they flew over the dark-green canopy of eucalyptus forests of fertile Arnhem Land, and crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria in the full darkness of the night. When they passed over Cape York peninsula, Tom was at the throttle, and the younger boys had been asleep for a number of hours. They had now left the whole continent of Australia behind them, and were facing the broad wastes of the Pacific.
Their perils had begun in earnest. Should anything happen to cause them to be forced down, there was nothing but a vast basin of water miles deep to catch them, and there would not be one chance in a thousand that they would survive. This, surely, was no place and no time for engines to fail or steering apparatus to go wrong. Yet each flyer was ready for such a mishap—attested by the mute evidence of an inflated rubber tube about his waist. Even Bob and Paul slumbered on the airy contrivances.
Fortunately the weather was ideal. It is true that headwinds blew mildly and insistently, causing some bumpiness, but the night was calm and starry, and with the engine running close to full-out, they saw that they were making up lost time very fast.
When morning broke, and Paul took the throttle, fair skies looked down upon their skimming bird, and the sea was bathed in brilliant sunshine. Bob wirelessed Sydney their position about noon. He made no attempt to get Apia, because he knew there was no telegraph or radio station there.
Flying low, early in the afternoon they passed close enough to the Vanikord islands to see hordes of natives watching them from the coral shores. Numerous smaller islets, gems set in the ultramarine blue of the sea, were also passed within the next hour. Gulls, ospreys, and other swift-winged seabirds sailed about these pretty outcroppings of the mighty deep, and sometimes the creatures came after the Sky-Bird with shrill cries of challenge, only to be quickly left behind.
Once more the shades of night fell, and once more John took the destinies of the airplane in hand. For a time Bob and Paul worked on reports, then played with Grandpa, who in such tedious spells of flying as this was a never-ending source of entertainment to all. Nine o'clock found them in their hammocks, hoping that when they opened their eyes again it would be to see the welcome shores of their destination.