There was no getting around it—Pete Deveaux was clever, if he were a rascal. This our friends had to admit to themselves, despite their dislike of the fellow. His methods of getting the best of them seemed to have no limit; and yet thus far they had been able to cling, by the hardest kind of work, right at his heels. This last trick was more honest strategy than Deveaux had exhibited before, and they could therefore admire it in that sense. They hoped that from now on his maneuvers might be as free from maliciousness.
But their rivals had not fooled them as badly as they thought. Our flyers had lost no time upon landing in refitting, and when they saw the Clarion take off, they speeded up operations so fast that they were able to depart only fifteen minutes later.
Almost straight eastward they headed, bearing just a little to the southward, so as to strike Singapore on a bee-line. They hoped to reach this stop some time before dark, which would give them approximately twelve hours' flying time. Under ideal weather conditions, they could make the journey in considerably less time, but it was the season for the well-known monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and it was quite unlikely that they would be able to wing their way across the fourteen hundred odd miles of sea without encountering some of these deterrent trade-winds.
It took them just an hour to cross the island of Ceylon, and flying at about fifteen hundred feet, they winged their way out over the whitecaps of the ocean. To their unspeakable pleasure they found the winds not at all bad, and made good speed. Bob was at the throttle, Paul was observing, and John and Tom were sleeping.
They had been flying thus for perhaps two hours, when Paul saw that for which he had been keenly watching for some time. It was a faint black speck, like a tiny bird, against the blue of the heavens ahead of them. He continued to watch this silently, after calling his chum's attention to it, until, under an increase of speed, the Sky-Bird had drawn close enough for them to observe that it was what they suspected—an airplane.
In another hour they were near enough to recognize in it the unmistakable outlines of the Clarion. To all appearances their rivals had also observed them, and were crowding on power, for now they gained much slower. Yet they still continued to narrow the breach between them, steadily, rod by rod, and minute by minute. They could see that the Clarion was not well handled, for she wavered in her flight considerably.
"They'd be wise if they'd throw those rocks out which they took aboard," commented Paul. "That might help them to fly steadier."
"They're flying all of a thousand feet higher than we are," said Bob.
"We're going to pass under them, I think, in the next half-hour."
That was the way matters looked. The | Clarion was riding high, and was so close by this time that the windows in her cabin could be made out. Against those panels of glass our friends felt sure some of the rival crew were even at that moment pressing anxious faces as they watched the Sky-Bird steadily creeping up on them.
It was such an auspicious moment that Paul went and aroused John and Tom, so that they could see the Sky-Bird overtake and pass her adversary. Those two worthies grumbled a whole lot for a few moments, being half asleep, but when they grasped the situation and saw the Clarion just ahead, they were as much interested as anybody.