Dr. Perkins shook his head.
“Nothing much would be gained by it,” he said, “and it would only delay our trip.”
The Sea Eagle was flying fast, and the rascals on the island, who, as Frank had rightly guessed, were the two Daniels and Duval, had no chance to try a second shot. At noon, after a steady flight all the morning, the voyagers found themselves off Martha’s Vineyard. A hasty lunch was eaten in midair, with the Sea Eagle still winging her way like a grayhound of the sky.
The shore swam by below them like a panorama, but they only viewed it indistinctly, as the course was kept about five miles off shore. In the afternoon they saw, off to the right, a stretch of mammoth hotels and amusement resorts.
“Atlantic City!” cried Frank. “I’ll bet there are hundreds of glasses leveled at us from the boardwalk right now.”
“I guess so,” rejoined Harry. “We must look funny way out here at sea.”
It was half an hour later that Frank’s attention was attracted to the sky by the sudden blotting out of the sun, which had been shining brightly. He gave a cry of alarm as he looked upward. A vast bank of black clouds had come rolling up, like a sable curtain, blotting out the blue sky. The sea below was leaden and angry in hue, and its surface was flecked with white caps.
“We’re in for some bad weather, I’m afraid,” declared Dr. Perkins, when Frank called his attention to it.
Hardly had he spoken before, from the cloud bank, a red, jagged flash of lightning blazed. It was followed almost instantly by a sharp clap of thunder, and some heavy rain drops began to patter on the broad upper planes of the Sea Eagle.
“I’ll make for shore,” declared Dr. Perkins; “we must be about off Cape May now. We can lie there in shelter till this blows itself out.”