"All clear, sir!" reported Bramsdean through a speaking-tube.
Curt but precise orders rang out from the navigation-room. The slight hiss of the brodium being released from the metal cylinders was barely audible above the sighing of the wind in the pine-tops until the gauges registering the "lift" of the airship indicated thirty-eight tons.
Armed with a megaphone, Fosterdyke leant out of the window of the navigation-room.
"All ready? ... Let go!"
Simultaneously the twenty men holding the airship released their hold. That was where training and discipline told, for terrible to contemplate would have been the fate of an unwary "ground-man" had he retained his grip on the rope. But without an accident to mar the momentous event, the "Golden Hind" shot almost vertically into the air, attaining in a very short space of time an altitude of six thousand feet.
Not a cheer rang out to speed the departing competitor for the stupendous contest. Unheard and unseen save by the loyal band of helpers at the aerodrome, Sir Reginald Fosterdyke's airship was on her way to the starting-point of her voyage round the globe.
[CHAPTER V--FIRST AWAY]
Hanging apparently motionless in still air, although virtually she was drifting in a southerly direction at a modest ten miles an hour, the "Golden Hind" maintained her altitude for the best part of half an hour before any attempt was made to start the motors. She was now to all intents and purposes a non-dirigible balloon, floating aimlessly in the air.
Peter Bramsdean, his work aft accomplished, made his way to the navigation-room, where he found the baronet and Kenyon watching the galaxy of lights far beneath them.
"We're drifting over Poole Harbour," observed Fosterdyke. "That's prohibited for private owned aircraft; but who's to know?"