The landing field was a small one, no more than a hundred and fifty yards long by seventy-five wide. At one end was an unpretentious but comfortable dwelling, in one of whose rooms Davis was at that moment resting. At the other end a shed evidently formed the hangar for the black flyer. Along the sides of the inclosure were long sheds, some of them empty, some containing supplies of various sorts. Half a dozen cold bombs, complete except for the mysterious treatment of their surface that gave them their strange property, lay on the floor of one of the sheds along the sides. Another shed, long disused, had provided quarters for workmen. Teddy found the single exit that led from the inclosure. It opened on the wide hillside and afforded a view of miles without a sign of human habitation. The remnant of a wheel track that had obviously not been traveled for months led away from the door. Along that primitive road the materials for building the inclosure and the black flyer had evidently been brought. Teddy went back to Davis.
"Gerrod," said Davis amiably, "I'm a fake. I'd lost quite some blood, you know, and I was pretty weak, but while you were gone I saw a small black bottle on a shelf over there, and I managed to crawl over to it. Wherever we are, prohibition hasn't struck in, and I took just enough to feel all right again. I believe I can drive back. It wasn't more than a two-hour drive anyway, was it?'
"Between two and three," said Teddy, smiling. "We were making terrific speed, though. We're probably in Newfoundland somewhere."
"Or Iceland. To tell the truth, I'm quite indifferent. Suppose you help me out to the machine again."
"I want to see what I can find in the laboratory first," said Teddy.
The laboratory was of the smallest. Whatever experiments had been necessary to perfect the cold bombs and the black flyer had been made elsewhere. Teddy found a number of notebooks, which he took. He found many chemicals, some in considerable quantities, in receptacles about the laboratory, but no clew to the mysterious process that had enabled Varrhus to threaten the world's security. He left Varrhus where he lay. Both he and Davis confidently expected to return and investigate thoroughly both the cold bombs and the black flyer. Davis, especially, was anxious to examine that strange machine in detail, but his wound was painful and he wished to have it properly dressed. Besides this, the whole world was waiting anxiously to learn its fate, whether Varrhus' ambitious plans were to be frustrated or whether it would have to put its neck beneath the heel of the mad dictator.
Teddy lifted Davis in the machine, and after some difficulty they started off. Davis circled above the small clearing until it was tiny beneath them.
"Course is southwest," he remarked to Teddy. "We'll notice where we land and then a northeast course will bring us back here again or nearly."
"Right," said Teddy abstractedly. His mind leaped ahead to the moment when he would see Evelyn again. He had seen her just before starting for Noman's Reef and she had seemed pale and anxious. He was not sure, but he hoped he was right in believing that she was more anxious than she would have been had she looked on him merely as a friend or comrade.
The biplane sped over the sea across which it had flown in such desperate haste that morning. Davis was weak, but for straightaway flying modern machines need but little attention. The new inherently stable aëroplanes are so safe that an amateur could pilot one in midflight. And Davis had taken a small quantity of stimulant to supplement his strength. At that, however, his endurance was severely taxed before he flattened out and taxied across the landing field on Staten Island. Mechanics rushed out to greet him and help him from the machine.