As for personal comfort, they were as free from the driving wind as though they had been riding in a limousine automobile, for indeed this was a limousine airship, thoroughly enclosed as concerned the Nacelle, or cock-pit and fusilage, which contained the crew and access to every part of the engine, radio, etc.
Occasionally Fred would catch snatches of wireless messages, but mostly they were of a commercial and therefore uninteresting character.
It was about midnight when they came within that sky glow which informed them that they were approaching the metropolis of America—New York.
"Think of the damage a bomber could do, and the consternation it could raise down there," said Don. "Let's circle around two or three times, just for the fun of it. We've got plenty of time now."
And they did. Cutting inland, they crossed almost directly over the heart of the city, continued over the North River and above Hoboken, swung down and around Newark, out over the bay and then upward toward the big city again, as though actually bent upon a mission of mischief.
Again they repeated this, and then swerved out over Brooklyn and above the open sea again.
A little more than an hour elapsed and they were above Philadelphia. It lay like a great black splotch on the ground, the meagre moonlight playing on the Delaware in a way to make it look like a great thread of silver. Only a winding line indicated where the Schuylkill cut the city in two, but where it joined the Delaware the latter began to widen, and from the height of the plane they could see far below to where the river became a bay.
Ships dotted it here and there like little spiders resting on a pool. Nothing moved. It was like a fairy visit to another and a dead world.
The bay itself was so smooth that they decided to drop there for a few minutes, open their thermos bottles of coffee, which was still hot, eat a couple of sandwiches at leisure, and then continue the trip. Finally finding a spot so remote from any ship that it was unlikely that their descent would be discovered, and thereby perhaps raise a furore of excitement and speculation as to who they were and what they were doing there at that queer time, they made their landing with such ease as hardly to cause a splash as they settled on the surface of the water.
The inner man satisfied, they prepared for the continuance of their trip. There was a swift inspection of every part of the plane, and in another ten minutes they were again under way, the firing of the engines sounding like a miniature artillery bombardment on the stillness of the night.