Down he fell, hands and feet extending, until with a jerk he was at the end of the rope. Then he ought to have died and swung edifyingly, but instead a more terrible thing happened; his head came right off, and down the body went spinning to the sea, feeble, grotesque, fantastic, with the head racing it in its fall.
“Ugh!” said Bert, clutching the rail before him, and a sympathetic grunt came from several of the men beside him.
“So!” said the Prince, stiffer and sterner, glared for some seconds, then turned to the gang way up into the airship.
For a long time Bert remained clinging to the railing of the gallery. He was almost physically sick with the horror of this trifling incident. He found it far more dreadful than the battle. He was indeed a very degenerate, latter-day, civilised person.
Late that afternoon Kurt came into the cabin and found him curled up on his locker, and looking very white and miserable. Kurt had also lost something of his pristine freshness.
“Sea-sick?” he asked.
“No!”
“We ought to reach New York this evening. There's a good breeze coming up under our tails. Then we shall see things.”
Bert did not answer.
Kurt opened out folding chair and table, and rustled for a time with his maps. Then he fell thinking darkly. He roused himself presently, and looked at his companion. “What's the matter?” he said.