“Goat Island?”
“I don' know what it was called. But any'ow I found a flying-machine and made a sort of fly with it and got here.”
Two men stood up with incredulous eyes on him. “Where's the flying-machine?” they asked; “outside?”
“It's back in the woods here—'bout arf a mile away.”
“Is it good?” said a thick-lipped man with a scar.
“I come down rather a smash—.”
Everybody got up and stood about him and talked confusingly. They wanted him to take them to the flying-machine at once.
“Look 'ere,” said Bert, “I'll show you—only I 'aven't 'ad anything to eat since yestiday—except mineral water.”
A gaunt soldierly-looking young man with long lean legs in riding gaiters and a bandolier, who had hitherto not spoken, intervened now on his behalf in a note of confident authority. “That's aw right,” he said. “Give him a feed, Mr. Logan—from me. I want to hear more of that story of his. We'll see his machine afterwards. If you ask me, I should say it's a remarkably interesting accident had dropped this gentleman here. I guess we requisition that flying-machine—if we find it—for local defence.”
3