“How far do you figure we are from La Merced, now?” asked Harry after a long silence in which the lightning had kept the aeroplane illuminated in an almost constant blaze of lambent flame.
“Not more than twenty miles,” returned Frank, “we must make it before this hits us or——”
He did not mention the alternative. There was no need to. Both boys knew that anything more risky than handling an aeroplane in a gale of wind could not be imagined.
More and more frequent grew the lightning flashes and they were now accompanied by terrific peals of thunder, that seemed to shake every rib and stanchion of the aeroplane.
“It’s an electric storm and a bad one, too,” exclaimed Frank, as a hissing bolt of lightning tore across the sky as it seemed only a few feet from the laboring aeroplane and struck the earth with a terrific report. Save for the first few warm drops there had been no rain and both boys were inwardly thankful for this. They believed the Golden Eagle could force her way through a rain storm, but they did not want to try. For an aeroplane, rain is almost as unfavorable an element as wind.
So filled with electricity was the air that occasionally after a particularly vivid flash, the metal portions of the Golden Eagle were outlined in living fire. This added a new terror to the boys’ position.
What if the engine short-circuited?
Almost as the thought flashed across their minds the Golden Eagle seemed to become suddenly enveloped in a perfect sheet of fire. The boys could hear the hiss of the live electricity as it ran along her stay wires and stanchions. Blinded and half stunned, they realized as the glare crashed out that it must have short-circuited something.
With a great sigh of relief, however, Frank realized that the engine was still running sweet and true. He glanced at the binnacle.
Ah, that was it!