As for the rest of the crew, breakfast probably kept them from their posts. An assistant engineer, examining the machinery, went from one house to the other.
If the speed of the ship was great the two colleagues could only estimate it imperfectly, for the “Albatross” had passed through the cloud zone which the sun showed some four thousand feet below.
“I can hardly believe it.” said Phil Evans.
“Don’t believe it!” said Uncle Prudent. And going to the bow they looked out towards the western horizon.
“Another town.” said Phil Evans.
“Do you recognize it?”
“Yes! It seems to me to be Montreal.”
“Montreal? But we only left Quebec two hours ago!”
“That proves that we must be going at a speed of seventy-five miles an hour.”
Such was the speed of the aeronef; and if the passengers were not inconvenienced by it, it was because they were going with the wind. In a calm such speed would have been difficult and the rate would have sunk to that of an express. In a head-wind the speed would have been unbearable.