“But she’s swaying right now as if ready to give up the ghost and drop!” Pudge complained in a strained voice. “That rattle has stopped. Why is that, Frank?”
“I did it so as to keep what energy we’ve got as long as we can,” he was told.
“We’re doing nobly, young m’sieu!” called out M. Le Grande.
“Yes, there are the trenches just ahead of us!” added Billy. “Listen to the rattle of rifles, will you? And I can hear cheers too, hearty English cheers. See them jumping up in plain sight and waving to us, boys! A little further, Frank, and you can volplane if it’s necessary, because we’ll have crossed the line and be in safety.”
But the puttering of the motors told that they had arrived at the last stage of labor. A gas engine cannot run without fuel of some sort, and the vapor now being fed was of an inferior quality, so that the energy became less and less.
They were at this critical time almost directly over the German trenches, and so close that they could see the soldiers pointing up at them, even without the use of field glasses or binoculars.
“Oh! did you hear that bullet hum past then?” ejaculated Pudge, who had ducked his head in an involuntary way as though he would avoid contact with the random lead, just as some nervous people start with each flash of lightning.
Other missiles were also winging along through space, showing that the seaplane, in its mad race for a safe landing, must have already descended a considerable distance under Frank’s manipulation.
Strange what queer thoughts will flash into the mind when under such a stress as this. Frank afterward laughed to remember how he was determining then and there, that if ever he had occasion to make another aërial voyage above hostile armies, where he might be subject to a bombardment, one of the things he meant to see about before starting was that he carried a bullet-proof petrol reservoir along with him.
Suddenly the motors ceased working, as the supply of gas came to an abrupt end. They were by now over the British trenches, where the men were shouting all kinds of hoarse salutes, though compelled to again hastily seek shelter in their pits, as the Germans had opened fire on them.