As for Mr. Ridgeway, for the first time in a good many days he was at ease. It is true that he had been worried at the failure of O’Brien to turn up at Barnegat but he had appeared so soon after their own start, hustling along dim and mysterious in the early dawn, that Mr. Ridgeway’s last fears were silenced and he felt that the journey could assume the aspect of a pleasure trip, a vacation from care. He settled himself in an easy corner and sat looking out through the clouds that were rising about them from the sea. They were shot with rainbow tints as the rising sun pierced them. Mr. Ridgeway wished that his wife might see them. He would have much to tell her when he saw her in the old English house where she was staying, utterly unconscious of the fact that her staid husband was literally flying to meet her!
Not a foreboding crossed his mind. The papers, carefully protected by wrappings of oiled silk, as well as the crown jewels, lay in a cleverly constructed cylinder under his feet.
This cylinder was an invention of his own. The size, weight, and shape were exactly identical with the cylinders that held the hyolax. There were ten of these cylinders lying side by side under a close grating that served as floor in that end of the cabin. Their polished steel sides gleamed prettily through the slats. They were made especially to fit the under curve of the boat-shaped cabin, and were ample to carry enough hyolax for three oversea trips, but Mr. Ridgeway wanted no question of insufficient gas to worry him. But the end can held the treasure. With his own hands, under the eye of the Keeper at the Treasury, he had wrapped the priceless crown jewels in cotton, and had stored them in the big steel shell. Their individual boxes, cases, and caskets made of finest leather and carved oak and gold, were returned to the Treasury. Some other time they could be returned to their anxious royal owner. Now the only thing that mattered was the jewels themselves. Mr. Ridgeway smiled as he thought of the splendid glittering things. Never before in the world’s history had they been handled by any hands other than those of noblemen and women.
And here they were, their only guardian a man of the people, yet safe on their way home to their royal resting place.
So Mr. Ridgeway rested, his eyes on the east and his thoughts far ahead. Occasionally talking to Lawrence, reading or planning, he spent the daylight hours.
Behind came what seemed O’Brien’s car, never gaining, but following steadily.
Staring steadily at the dirigible ahead, like a snake that fixes its baleful eyes on its prey to hypnotize and devour, Smith bent forward, tense and untiring. He had not slept for forty-eight hours, yet his pale eyes were clear and keen, his face, a little pale, was unlined by anxiety. Why should he be anxious? All was going well. He knew the very spot off the coast where the white cliffs rose so bleakly, the very place where even now the schooner would be waiting. All he needed was a little patience, just a little. Then he would send out the signal for help ... and he knew Mr. Ridgeway. He would stop to help O’Brien, no matter how anxious to make speed on the last lap of the journey across the ocean.
There was but one thing, such a little thing, seemingly so unimportant. And this one thing, passing in a whispered conversation between O’Brien and Lawrence, he did not know. But Lawrence remembered and put his knowledge to the test, and the result worried him. Again and again he made the manoeuver, so far to the right, back as far to the left, and a spurt ahead, but there was no sign of acknowledgment from the plane following.
O’Brien could not have forgotten. O’Brien never forgot anything. Lawrence tried the manoeuver until he was afraid to repeat it, and like a star shell exploding in his brain came the thought, “That is not O’Brien’s car!”
He took the glasses and studied the car. He could see by its quick tremor that the engines were being pressed to their utmost in order to keep up with their speedy leader, but otherwise there was nothing to make him think that O’Brien was not at the wheel. Yet he could not cast out the strange thought, “O’Brien is not there!” If not, who was in the car? Who was rushing it directly in their aerial wake? He hated to answer that question.