“Air-ship! dead off our bow, sir!” suddenly hailed the lookout forward; who, like everybody else, had been keeping a watch all day for some signs of the boys’ craft.
“By Jove, so it is!” exclaimed the lieutenant, bringing his glasses to bear.
High in the evening sky above the tangle of islands an air-craft was winging its way toward them. At first sight a mere speck, she grew rapidly larger as she neared the shore.
“But what can have happened to her?” exclaimed the lieutenant as the first vague blot of the ship resolved through his glasses into definite lines, “here, take a look, Bagsby.”
He handed the glasses to his subordinate, who laid them aside in a few minutes with the exclamation.
“Why, she’s as black as a coal, sir!”
“What’s that dangling at her stern, Bagsby?” asked Lieutenant Selby the next minute.
“Why, it looks like an American flag, sir,” responded the ensign, “but it’s almost as black as the rest of her and—just look at that, sir—the men in her all black, too!”
Hardly able to control his excitement the lieutenant took the glasses from his subordinate, though by this time the air-vessel was so close that the five persons aboard her were visible to the naked eye. They were waving furiously and shouting at the tops of their voices, though these sounded, to tell the truth, a bit feeble.
“Tarantula, ahoy!” came a hail from the aeroplane, as she swung in a graceful circle about the destroyer.