CHAPTER XXII
A HYDROPLANE RESCUE
All this while Andy's nerves had been strained to a high pitch. And it was not at all singular, therefore, that when the anticipated event came to pass he gave vent to a loud cry.
"Looky! Frank; they're going to drop! Something must have happened to the motor or else a plane guy broke to cripple them!" was what he almost shrieked.
Frank was watching, though he had not uttered a single sound. He knew that the half expected crisis was now upon them. At least his heart found cause for rejoicing that if an accident had to happen, it affected the other aeroplane rather than their own. It is much easier to bear watching another's troubles than to bear your own.
What Andy had said was the truth, for the craft they were chasing after had taken a sudden dip, and was fluttering downward.
If you have ever seen a crippled bird trying hard to keep afloat, you can have a pretty good conception of how that biplane dropped lower and lower toward the water.
That it did not fall like a lump of lead spoke volumes for the magnificent management of the pilot who controlled the levers, and whose long experience had taught him just what to do in such a dreadful emergency as this.