Storms had sent him far out of his course. Instead of Japan, this was Kamchatka that he floated above. Away to the south of him lay the Tokio of his destination.
In the face of a terrible weariness that was creeping over him, Hal Dane turned the nose of his craft to the south. He had already spent one night out over the ocean, and now another night was darkening his sky.
CHAPTER XXV
HIS NAME ACROSS THE SKY
Deep in the night, and in a dense fog, Hal Dane hovered over a faint earthly glow that he felt must be Tokio, capital city of Japan. Hours ago he had straightened the wide deflection of his course that had taken him astray over the edge of the long peninsula of Kamchatka.
As he checked up again by chart and map, his wearying senses told him this must be it—the Tokio that he had crossed thousands upon thousands of miles of ocean to reach.
He drifted down to four thousand feet altitude. From here flood lights and beacons were dimly visible, more assurance that he must be over the imperial city of the Orient’s most progressive civilization.
A thrill shot through Hal Dane, lifting the great weariness of the forty hours’ continuous flying. Aches and chill and battering of storms were forgotten now that the fight was ending. He had done what he had set out to do—crossed the greatest of the oceans in a single non-stop flight.
His fingers began to tap an incessant query on his sending-radio outfit, “Landing field? Landing field? Landing field?”
And suddenly he was in touch with answers winging their way up to him from the ground below—“Tokio Asahi! Tokio Asahi!” Over and over he got those two words—“Tokio Asahi!”
He was in touch with humanity again! Men on this Japanese land knew he was winging his way above them. Men were answering his call. “Tokio Asahi”—there it came again. What did it mean?