"So long," the other pilot shouted, apparently still dubious, as Jack swung the plane round gently and she started to skim the water, gathering speed every second in preparation for taking the air.
In fifteen minutes they were completely lost to the view of those who had hastily run to the shore line when the powerful chug-chug of the giant motor had first rent the air. For the double purpose, however, of saving time and giving their disturbed colleagues every assurance that they were not in fact making the Transatlantic attempt, they headed due south, and were still keeping that direction when they disappeared from sight.
An hour later Fred opened up the wireless and finally got the Halifax station.
"Headed south, putting plane through tests," he tapped off by radio. "May be gone day or two."
He might have added, but didn't, "On important government business."
CHAPTER VIII "Deliver These at Paris"
Ask anyone who knows, and he will tell you that there is nothing to compare to the zest of the aerial flight. Those contemplating it for the first time view it with mixed feelings of trepidation and anticipation, but once in flight there is only unbounded exhilaration. The experience is like that of throwing off shackles which have bound one to a narrow earthly existence; mere human cares and worries are for the time at least forgotten, and one feels the freedom of the birds and glows with the very pleasure of it. Fears which beset the preliminaries are forgotten; the imagination is awakened with new ambitions; life seems to hold forth previously unthought-of possibilities. And the real joy of it all is that the aerial flight never loses its thrill, never fails in these and new sensations.
Add to this the mystery contained in their unexpected summons to Washington, and the natural pride stirred by the anticipation of being called upon for some important service, and you have some realization of the feelings which animated these four young men as, at a cruising speed of ninety miles an hour, they continued their voyage southward, a mile and a half in the air, two miles out to sea from the shore line, looking like a giant eagle in the sky to those who discovered or discerned them at all.