In this uncomfortable condition, then, we can leave him to his own devices, with the knowledge that, though he had failed once in his dastardly effort to wreck Joe Gresson's invention, he had by no means given up all hope of achieving success. For Joe and his friends, we can say that they gave scarcely another thought to their late guest, who had abused their kindness so disgracefully.
"It's a black page in the history of our trip," said Andrew, the morning following. "We will turn it over and seal it down. Ugly things are better as a rule when shut out of view. And now, Mr. Skipper?"
"Now, Joe?" cried the Commander. "We await orders. Do we remain here cooking in the neighbourhood of Delhi? Or do we seek a more balmy clime, where a man may sleep peacefully in his cabin, and must not necessarily spend the baking night restlessly pacing the open deck above dressed only in his pyjamas?"
"Yes—what next?" demanded Dick, his mouth still busy with the breakfast he was devouring. But what recked Dicky of heat? Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw carried an appetite wherever he went, and his breakfast this morning showed that heat hardly affected him. He was not even limp, whereas the Major, hardened soldier that he was, and accustomed to India, was as flabby as a wet rag.
"Which comes of modern invention," he laughed. "Send me to India in the cold weather, and leave me in the plains when the heat comes. I'll not turn a hair, for I've had time to become acclimatized. But set out from London as we have done on this new-fangled machine—apologies, Joe and Mr. Andrew—set out, I say, on this airship and plunge me suddenly from the heights, where one needs a fur coat, to the plains about Delhi in the hot weather, and I admit I become a limp, nerveless individual."
"While I for another shall be glad to move on," Joe admitted. "Well, now; we take in stores here—they are coming aboard already—then, following the plan agreed upon, we sail along over the all-red route. Naturally, this trip is not a true tour of the world, for then we should take a straight line, the shortest route possible. We are purposely lengthening our journey, and should we successfully complete it, we shall have flown many more miles than the twenty-five odd thousand which circumvent the globe. So our course lies east, parallel almost to the Himalaya mountains."
"Ah! A test of elevation, perhaps," suggested the Commander. "You could cross the Himalayas."
"Why not?"
"At their highest point?"
"I have reason to believe so," said Joe, with the quiet assurance of the inventor who has the utmost faith in the powers of the machine he has constructed. "Why not?"