“Now!” suddenly shouted Jerry as if he was calling to some one, and he yanked the elevation rudder lever toward him.
Like a thing alive the Comet seemed to lift herself from the surface of the water. The front end was elevated, the forward hydroplanes emerging dripping from the liquid element. Now they were almost over the rowboat, in the bottom of which, clinging to each other in terror, were the two trembling occupants.
Would the rear end of the airship—the big after-hydroplanes clear them; or would they dash them to death?
This was the question that every one on board the Comet was asking himself, Jerry most anxiously of all, for it was his desperate plan that was being tried. Yet there was no other way.
With a whizzing and a rushing sound the motor-ship lifted herself from the lake. Upward and upward she mounted, the rear hydroplanes being now clear of the water. In another moment the airship passed over the heads of those in the rowboat, clearing them by about five feet, as Jerry and his chums learned afterward. They could not see what took place below them and directly in the rear, but when they were well up in the air, by looking back, they could see the woman and the girl in the boat, unharmed. There was a prayer of thankfulness in every heart.
“Whew!” exclaimed Jerry, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and slowed down the speed of the motor. “I wouldn’t go through such an experience again for a million dollars.”
“Me either,” chimed in Ned. “I thought they were goners, as well as ourselves.”
“It was a narrow squeak,” added Bob. “They came out directly in our path.”
“Well, they didn’t mean to,” suggested the tall lad. “I guess they were as badly frightened as we were. But the Comet did herself proud on this occasion.”
“And you handled your craft most excellently,” complimented Professor Snodgrass, who, during the recent excitement, had remained a mute spectator. “I never saw better nerve displayed, Jerry, my boy.”