In shape it looked like a huge bat, and was built on the principle of an aeroplane. At the stern an immense rudder was turned by a small gasolene motor, and there were several smaller rudders for directing the course of the apparatus. There was a little car, of basket-work, amidships, where the operator sat.
It was three days before the German was satisfied that all was in readiness for the preliminary test that was to tell if Dick would spend five hundred dollars on improvements. In spite of the attempt to keep the matter quiet the news leaked out, and a big crowd gathered to see Herr Doodlebrod make an attempt to fly.
"I do not promise so much to-day," he said, as he saw that all was in readiness. "I vill go up, circle about for a vile, und den I haf to come down. My engine iss not powerful enough. But vid der new one! Ach, den ve vill fly far und vin der prize!"
He climbed into the little basket-car. Giving a look over the various handles and levers, and seeing that all was clear ahead, Herr Doodlebrod started the motor. It began to revolve rapidly, crackling like a battery of Gatling guns.
"Now I fly!" exclaimed the German, as he threw on the clutch that operated the propeller. The big airship trembled as the massive blades whizzed through the air, and all eyes were fixed on it to detect the moment when it might leave the earth and sail aloft.
CHAPTER XXX
A DISASTROUS FLIGHT
"There it goes!" cried a score of voices, Dick's among them. And, sure enough, the airship moved. Slowly, but gathering speed, like some ungainly creature, it rose into the air in a slanting direction. Up and up it went, until it was about two hundred feet above the earth. Then Herr Doodlebrod shifted a rudder and the machine flew along on a level keel.