“They don’t look pretty, do they? I’ll bet he has been in some close corner. I’ll bet he has been gagged.”
“Well, Billy, I bet so too, so there are no takers,” said the other airman.
“Well,” said Billy, “if I had your pull with O’Brien, Hank, I would sort of bring the conversation around to scraps and gags and things of that sort when he wakes up, and see what he says.”
“You don’t know O’Brien very well, do you, Billy?” asked Hank. “Well, I do, and I can tell you that the first question some gazaboo puts about O’Brien’s own private affairs, there will be another gagging episode and O’Brien won’t be the one to worry about who is going to come and untie him. Not much!”
“Oh, I wasn’t goin’ to ast him anything,” said Billy hastily.
CHAPTER X
While O’Brien slept and the two airmen speculated about him, far, far ahead two dirigibles flew straight into the rising sun. The first one might have outdistanced the second with the utmost ease. Indeed sometimes it was hard for her young pilot to temper his speed to the pace he knew the second balloon could make. The dirigible from Barnegat Inlet proved to be a wonder. It was a swallow, an arrow, a flash of light, a dream. All these terms and many more passed in turn through the mind of Lawrence as he held the wheel and felt the big cylinder respond to the slightest turn.
The lighter-than-air machines, while seemingly bulky, have a strange feeling of buoyancy that the planes do not possess. Lawrence seemed to partake of this lightness. He was happy beyond words. All was well. In his breast lay his new and wonderful secret. All the anxieties concerning the errand that had sent them overseas were past, with the treasure and the papers safely hidden.
Just in sight was another dirigible coming on at top speed. Lawrence kept it in sight, but was too anxious to proceed to allow the convoy to approach nearer. There was nothing that they wanted to say to O’Brien, nothing that he could want of them. In case of accident—well, there were the waterproof suits that were guaranteed to uphold the wearer safely, warm and dry, for forty-eight hours. Suits capable of offering a cup of hot chocolate and a biscuit to the fortunate possessor! Lawrence almost wished that he could try his out! As for O’Brien, he had a wireless which he could use if necessary.
In the meantime everything moved smoothly and pleasantly. Lawrence, his hand on the pulse of the machine he was guiding, marvelled at the propelling power of the new fuel, hyolax, and rejoiced to think that he had been honored by the position he was occupying. His thoughts turned to Mr. Ridgeway with gratitude. He hoped his own father would be as pleasant and as good to him.