Presently a voice which neither recognized came out of the shadows cast by a mass of clouds just then occupying the sky where the moon should have been.
“Hello!” the voice said.
The boys looked at each other in perplexity for a moment and then Jack answered back.
“Hello!” he said.
“Are you all safe up here, safe and sound?” the voice asked, and then the figure of a tall man, roughly dressed, but bearing the manner, as faintly observed in the darkness, of a gentleman, advanced toward the aeroplane, to which the lads were still devoting their whole attention.
“Safe and sound!” repeated Pat.
The stranger sat down by Jack’s side and laid hold of the aeroplane.
“Pulls hard, doesn’t it?” he asked, as the machine, forced by the wind, drew stoutly on the ropes and the muscles of the boys.
