When the stars faded at four o’clock in the morning and Alan felt the snappy night air changing to a colder moisture he feared a fog. Ned came on watch at seven o’clock to find every indication of heavier weather. Hoping that the fog, if it grew worse, would lift when the land was reached, the young aviators made the best of a bad prospect and Alan prepared to turn in.
“I’d stick now, to the end,” he explained, “if it wasn’t for what’s comin’. It’s a long haul back, old man,” he added as he patted Ned affectionately on the shoulder, “and that’s goin’ to be the real test.”
“In more ways than one,” replied Ned significantly. “But I’m feelin’ fine. Get what rest you can. We may have to stand a straight watch to-night.”
“Isn’t it surprisin’,” exclaimed Alan, “that we’re not throwin’ up our hats and yellin’? We’ve practically crossed the ocean at last and there don’t seem to be any excitement. What d’ you think we’ll do when we really sight the land?”
“If it’s Arran light,” answered Ned with a smile, “as I hope and reckon, I’ll bet our first thought’ll be ‘Are we on time?’”
No member of the crew had been busier during the night than Bob. Only a part of his “watch off” had he given up to sleep. In his eagerness he was frequently at the wireless, as the night wore on, watching and waiting for some answer to his earlier message. In mid-ocean this had been an almost useless precaution. The Flyer wireless outfit was hardly powerful enough to make a fifteen hundred mile connection. But Bob had a theory that the answer might come by way of some liner; that it might be picked up by the operator on some large steamer and thus relayed to the Flyer.
As the airship approached the Irish coast the keen young reporter was on the alert for a direct message from the station at the Lizard. At ten o’clock in the morning no word had been received and it was Bob’s turn for a few more hours’ sleep. As they must now be not much over two hundred miles from the land, Bob wanted to get off another message directly to the Herald office in London.
“There’s time yet,” he explained, “even if the other message went wrong. They’ll have three hours to change their plans—they can even send the fuel and oil wagon out to that place in three hours.”
Alan rather opposed the idea.
“We’ve got trouble enough ahead,” he suggested. “I don’t suppose the government would know about it and of course the wireless people wouldn’t interfere with a private message. But we can’t send it without telling about our plans again and I don’t like the idea of so many persons knowin’ what we’re tryin’ to do. If there’s a leak anywhere, you can bet the police ain’t goin’ to go to sleep on the job.”