A Fanlike Stream of Light Shot Out.
The couple outside were too much absorbed in what they saw to give heed to him.
“You’re right,” said Wharton; “it’s an aeroplane and the aviator means to alight.”
The searchlight continued darting here and there, but the spreading glow finally settled upon the ground near where the biplane stood silent and motionless.
“It is unaccountable that it makes no noise. Look!”
The aviator now demonstrated that he was an expert in the management of his machine. He oscillated downward, zig-zagging to the right and left, until he gently touched the earth and the wheels running a short distance settled to rest. The searchlight flitted toward different points several times and then was abruptly extinguished. Harvey and Wharton walked across the ground toward the machine. Before they reached it, they made out the dim forms of a monoplane and a man standing beside it. To the youth he was the tallest and slimmest person he had ever seen. His stature must have been six and a half feet and in common language he was as thin as a rail. He had observed the approach of the two and silently awaited them.
“Good evening!” saluted Harvey, who was slightly in advance of his companion.
“How do you do, sir?”
The voice would have won an engagement for the owner as the basso profundo in an opera troupe. It was like the muttering of thunder, and as Abisha Wharton expressed it, seemed to come from his shoes.