"All there; walks quickly backwards and forwards. You can tell he's a soldier."
"Then there's Hawkins and Hurst and the rest of the men rolling as is the custom with tars. Say, Dicky, why do sailors roll? Is it side only?"
That brought a flush of wrath to the cheeks of the indignant Dicky.
"Side!" he gasped. "Side! You ever saw a sailor suffering from swelled head? Look here, my son, I'll punch yours if you ain't more careful."
But it was all fun. They grimaced at one another and then grinned widely as another figure appeared in the peculiar perspective of men tramping overhead. It was the magnate, the high and mighty Mr. Reitberg, the sportsman who pronounced his words with a very peculiar accent, and who was fond of describing himself as English to the backbone.
"Tell him a mile off," sniffed Dick. "Big, flat feet, rest all corporation. Can't get a glimpse of his ugly phiz for the size of his tummy."
What a joy it was to these two bosom friends to send the ship bounding forward! To stir up the motor gently purring beside them, to rouse it as it were to a gentle fury, for that was one of the points of Joe's handiwork and genius. This paraffin-fired motor of his ran as smoothly as any turbine. You might accelerate it as much as you could, and still it purred, though at its highest speeds the purr had become angry and assertive. Yes, it was a joy to shut close, to bang and bar as it were, the throttle and set the hydraulic pumps into full action. And how the ship responded. She leaped forward, and there had been times when the speedometer mounted in the engine-room told that the vessel was thrusting herself through the air at the incredible speed of two hundred miles an hour. Impossible! we hear some sceptical reader exclaim. Why? But five years ago aeroplanes were spoken of derisively, while their speed seldom exceeded forty miles an hour. To-day they can shoot through the air at a hundred, and the day is fast approaching, thanks to Joe Gresson and others of his kidney, when that speed will be as nothing. Why, then, should this great airship not be able to attain to even double the greatest known speed of an aeroplane? Why, indeed? Her design was all in her favour. There was hardly a projection about her to cause wind friction and delay her passage, while the smooth celludine with which she was coated slid through the atmosphere with an ease that had never been approached before. Add to these points, which all make for speed, engines of the highest efficiency, a transmission of the latest design and purely hydraulic. As carried out on the airship this means of conveying power from the engines to the propeller guaranteed but the merest fractional loss. In fact, what loss there was was negligible. And the propeller itself was one for which aviators would willingly have given a small fortune. But enough of such explanations. We live in a world of marvellous and incredible invention. The armchair sceptic and unbeliever of to-day has his views and scepticism shattered almost before he was finished speaking. The marvels of the Zeppelin, acknowledged to be the last word in airship construction, were now overshadowed and belittled by the wonders of Joe Gresson's invention. The world was raving about the ship. Scientists and inventors in every country were longing to be made familiar with its intricacies.
Steering over the placid surface of the Mediterranean Joe Gresson and his friends hovered over the port of Alexandria, and thence sailed for Cairo. Shrill cries greeted her from the sandy desert about the ancient pyramids, while a motley crowd waved to her from their summits. But there was no time to halt. With one long look at the placid, cruel, yet gentle face of the sphinx the ship's head was swung towards the east. An hour later a long ribbon of blue, shimmering in the sun, and hedged on either side by an unbroken expanse of yellow, told of the great Suez Canal.
"We'll follow it through its length," said Joe, now at the helm. "See! We are seven thousand feet up, and one can perceive a huge portion of the canal, severed here and there by the bitter lakes through which it runs. Ah! There's a ship. Let's drop down close to her."
The vessel plunged. One who was ignorant of her powers would have imagined that she was about to crash to the ground. But she was merely descending at her fastest pace, and plunging brought her within hailing distance of the ship then passing through the canal, even before Mr. Reitberg had quite recovered his nerve or his equilibrium.