Disregarding Tressidar's excitable requests to "Look sharp," the flight sub. snatched up a rifle that was lying in the car. Throwing up the bolt, he discovered, as he expected, that the weapon was already loaded. With a steady hand he held the muzzle within a couple of inches of the wire and pressed the trigger.
The next instant the balloon, captive no longer, was soaring skywards at a dizzy rate, the bullet having accomplished the task that the wire cutters had failed to do.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE DERELICT OBSERVATION BALLOON
"Well done, old man!" exclaimed Tressidar as he climbed back into the basket car. "That was a brilliant idea of yours. Look here, you know something of aeronautical work; I don't, so you had better pilot this contraption."
Fuller shook his head.
"This isn't a clinking little biplane," he said, "It is completely at the mercy of the wind. But we mustn't grumble; we're leaving Sylt a long way beneath us."
Looking over the edge of the car, Tressidar could discern practically the whole of the long, narrow island, which is twenty miles in length and averaging two miles in breadth. Owing to the fact that it was dead low water the island appeared to be a vast peninsula, joined to the Schleswig shore by a broad belt of sand. North and south of the island and running respectively south-east and north-east were two extensive estuaries that almost met at the causeway connecting Sylt with the mainland.
"Which way are we drifting?" asked Tressidar anxiously.