"If I land I'll have a hard job convincing them I wasn't," said Ned to himself.
But nevertheless, the lad tried with all his might to check the aeroplane's flight. But whatever had broken rendered this impossible. Try as he would, he could not stop the engine. His only safety, therefore, lay in keeping aloft. As the aeroplane rushed on through space, it gathered speed instead of diminishing the fury of its course.
It was all Ned could do to cling to the seat and control the frantic buckings and plungings of his aerial steed. The fact that though similar to the one he used, he was unfamiliar with the particular aeroplane in which he found himself, complicated his difficulties.
"I guess the only thing to do is to keep on till the gasolene gives out," he thought, after his twentieth attempt to check his runaway engine. "Reminds me of Don Quixote's ride with Sancho Panza to the palace of the magician in cloudland," was the whimsical thought that occurred to him. "Poor old Herc! It's not very complimentary to him to compare him to Sancho, but I wish he was here with me."
The fuel tank of the aeroplane must have been well filled, for the engine ran just as strongly at the end of an hour of aerial traveling as it had at the beginning of the trip.
"I'd turn round if I dared," thought Ned; "but I can't check the speed of the thing, and it would be suicidal to try to switch my course while going at this speed."
Ned's plight may be compared to that of a lad on a runaway bicycle on a steep hill. He did not dare turn for fear of disaster, and yet he didn't quite know what would happen if he kept on. However, he didn't have to be scared of colliding with a wagon!
Suddenly, to Ned's huge joy, the engine showed signs of slackening speed. He gently manipulated a lever, and found that he had partial control of the machine now. This being so, he decided to land as soon as practicable. From a clump of trees some distance ahead, the white spire of a church told him of a village. To his left hand lay the sea. Ned gazed at it longingly, as he dropped nearer and nearer to the ground.
He landed at the edge of a meadow adjoining a building which was occupied by the village post-office and telegraph office. A sign on a house across the way made his heart leap: