“Gosh, she’s a monoplane now!” exclaimed Charlie.
“Wonder how they’ll produce a tail unit?”
“You mean a rudder?”
“Yes. That, together with a stabilizer, fin and elevator.”
But before the words were well out of Bill’s mouth, the miracle occurred. A large rudder lifted itself out of the water, and opening out as it came to rest, seemed to sprout like a giant seabud into a complete tail group.
“Can she use the water propeller in the air?” Charlie kept his eyes glued on the submarine. “It seems to me that would hardly be big enough to fly with.”
“Hardly. That outfit is the queerest engineering jumble I’ve ever seen. But unless the Herr Baron can work absolute miracles, it will take more than one motor and propeller to move her.”
The submarine lay to windward of the amphibian. The lads therefore obtained a stern view of the ship and it was difficult for them to see exactly what was going on forward.
Suddenly Charlie raised another shout. “Look, Bill, look! Here comes the motor. Some jack-in-the-box, I call it.”
“And there’s another one! And still another! Gee-jumpin’-gee-roosalem—the blamed thing is coughing up motors like—”