They were now floating aimlessly in space, not having any means of moving save as the wind might chance to cause the seaplane to drift, much after the manner of an old-time balloon.
“Can you make the repairs, Frank, or do we have to hang out the white flag of surrender?” called Billy, in an agony of fear lest their wonderful tryout cruise be fated to come to such an ignoble finish.
“There’s nothing terrible the matter,” came the reassuring reply from the pilot, still working with feverish haste at the motors. “I think I can get things working again in a hurry.”
“Oh! you make me happy by saying that, Frank,” Billy told him. “I was beginning to think I could see the inside of a German dungeon, or a firing squad standing me up against a blank wall. I hope it doesn’t take long, Frank. There, they start their plagued old anti-aircraft guns again!”
Indeed, the first heavy crash of breaking shrapnel not far from the stationary seaplane proved that Billy’s remark bore the stamp of truth. They had rushed down with such impetus that before the buoyancy devices could accomplish the purposes for which they were intended, the seaplane had once more dropped within range of the elevated guns below.
Now having a stationary target to aim at instead of one that was making something like sixty, seventy, or perhaps fully five score miles an hour, the experienced gunners were very apt to send their shells dangerously close, so that at any second, fragments from one, as it burst, might do terrible damage to either the seaplane’s motors or her daring young pilots.
Oh! if Frank could only hurry and repair the motors, Billy was saying over and over again to himself as he clung there and tried to keep count of the numerous sudden puffs of gray or white smoke, indicating the breaking of the shrapnel shells around them.
What if one of them, better aimed than the rest, should shatter those buoyant wings that were their sole means of remaining afloat in the upper air! A rush, an agonized sensation of the earth coming up to meet them, and that would be their last realization of what life meant.
Billy would never forget that frightful agony of that minute as long as he lived. A minute—why, it seemed to the shivering boy as though he must have lived almost a whole year while that furious bombardment kept up; Frank coolly tinkered with the motors.
Then Billy heard his chum calling to him; never had words sounded one-half so sweet.