The next morning at a few minutes before eleven, Nike brought her out of a lower-sky near the New Jersey town and a few minutes later, Mrs. Pollzoff drove up in her own car. Roberta noticed that its fender had been bent, and when the woman alighted, she stopped a moment to speak to the chauffeur about having repairs made. He listened respectfully, then transferred her luggage to the waiting Nike, where he assisted in storing it safely.
While these final preparations were going on, Roberta heard a plane flying so low that she glanced up to see if the machine was coming down with its engine running, but she decided that the pilot must have had some difficulty in the take-off. He was climbing rather slowly, and she wondered if he was an inexperienced amateur in trouble or showing off to admiring friends who might be watching him.
“Is that all, Madame?” the chauffeur asked.
“Yes, thank you, that is all. We are quite properly packed, I think, Miss Langwell, but you had better make sure.” Roberta glanced at the tiny baggage compartment, which was certainly well filled, and nodded. “Then we can start as soon as you are ready.”
“I am ready now,” Roberta told her. Mrs. Pollzoff took her place, adjusted straps and chute, nodded to the chauffeur, who was already back in the battered limousine, then glanced at the sky.
“Go south, toward Florida, about twelve miles out. The weather looks a little doubtful, we may as well have the cover over our heads,” she said.
“All right.” Roberta slid the top into place and made it secure, then assuring herself that she could start without cutting anyone in two with the propeller, she opened the throttle. The engine roared, Nike moved forward swiftly, lifted thirty feet further along, then rose majestically into the air. They zoomed, circled in wide loops, ascending in spirals, and at five thousand feet, leveled off. Roberta set the plane’s nose toward the Atlantic, for she knew that her passenger preferred to travel above the water rather than the land. Ten minutes later the shore line was almost completely hidden by the haze which was lowering over the coast. Straight east they flew, only once seeing another plane. It was a small one which came alongside in a friendly fashion, but the distance was too great for the girl to see who was at the controls. Nike was twenty miles out when Mrs. Pollzoff indicated that she wanted to turn south, and in a moment that was accomplished. The sky did not look as threatening as it had from the shore and Roberta hoped that if a storm was brewing, she was going to get away from it.
They had been traveling about an hour when Mrs. Pollzoff got a book out and opened it, preparing to read. Roberta switched the light on so she could see better, and the woman glanced at the control board, seemed to make a mental calculation of the figures and dials, nodded, and then bent again over her reading. It wasn’t anything more suspicious than a mystery story and for the next half hour the woman did not lift her head again. She seemed perfectly indifferent to everything but the story. The little plane that had followed them out had fallen behind and lower, and the girl Sky-pilot judged that its speed was not very great. She wished it would come alongside because it is always rather jolly riding with another machine in the air. In less than an hour it had been left far behind.
Early in the evening Nike glided down at Charleston, W. Virginia, where Mrs. Pollzoff had arranged for refueling and accommodations for the night at a small hostelry near the flying field. They took a cab to the hotel, which was an interesting old place, with a long low-ceilinged dining room. The apartment was a comfortable one with three rooms and bath and while they were refreshing themselves the woman broke the silence.
“As a companionable person I am not a great success, Miss Langwell. Tonight I am a bit fatigued and I think I shall have dinner sent up, but if you have never been in this place and are not too tired, I am sure that you will enjoy the atmosphere of downstairs. This house used to be patronized by members of Virginia’s old families, and a few still cling to it; you may find it interesting.”