And what of the trip promised by Joe Gresson, and of the adventures it might and certainly should bring in its train?
"Jingo!" cried Dick, as he hastened to the post office to send a telegram requesting that his full kit might be sent to him. "Jingo, if we don't have a cruise worth talking about, well—well, my name ain't Dicky."
CHAPTER VI
Carl Reitberg, Sportsman
It may be imagined that the manufacture of an airship such as Dick Hamshaw had been introduced to, the child of Joe Gresson's clever brain, was not the work of a day. Four months had slipped by since that eventful day on which the young inventor and his uncle, Andrew Provost, had witnessed the flight of the Zeppelin outside Hamburg, and had accepted Carl Reitberg's somewhat arrogant challenge.
Nor did the trial flights of this wonderful vessel escape public notice, though, it is true, her hull was practically invisible. But the rescue of a naval party sent to help a foundered aviator was bound to be reported, so that on the very morning after Andrew and his friends reached their hangar, the journals were filled with this new mystery, while columns, indeed, were devoted to this new airship.
"Sensational rescue at sea by the crew of a strange airship," Dick read. "Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw and a party of six men aboard a steam pinnace were left struggling in the water owing to their craft colliding with a half-submerged waterplane. Who is the owner of the airship? To what nationality does she belong? Another air peril. Ship reported to be practically transparent and, therefore, almost invisible."
There was quite a furore about the affair, and no wonder, since England was still a laggard, and still employed her officers, capable and dashing enough themselves, in playing with toy airships—to wit, the Alpha, the Beta, and the Gamma. Other nations were pushing ahead. To us had belonged the mastery of the sea for years, the heavier element hemming our tight little island around. Now the lighter element was in danger of conquest by some other nation, by a nation which at any moment might prove to be an enemy, and which, within a few hours might have her air fleet hovering over our ports, our arsenals, our war harbours, even over London itself. Was this, then, a newcomer to add to our perils?