For quite half a minute Dacres felt as if he were seized by an invisible arm round his waist and was being forced backwards. Then the tension ceased as the inertia was overcome, he was part and parcel of a mass flying through the air at more than twice the speed of an express train.
Dacres glanced at his watch—it was twenty-five minutes past nine—then, lurching along the alley-way, for the "Meteor" was trembling and swaying as she cleft the air, he made his way for'ard.
He found Whittinghame standing in front of one of the observation scuttles in the lower navigation room. Williamson was at the wheel controlling the vertical rudders, while another man had his eye upon the indicators of the horizontal planes.
"Look!" exclaimed the captain, pointing downwards.
Dacres did so. Nine thousand feet beneath him stretched a ribbon-like expanse of water like a silver-streak between dense woodland on one hand and green fields on the other. Away on the starboard bow this streak merged into a wide stretch of sea, backed by hills that were dwarfed to the size of a mere series of mounds.
"By Jove! We're passing Southampton Water," ejaculated Dacres. He again glanced at his watch. It had taken him three and a half minutes to traverse the length of the "Meteor," and in that space of time the airship had travelled eleven miles.
"Top speed now," announced Whittinghame. "We're doing one hundred and ninety. We'll have to slacken down now; we're nearly there."
As he spoke the Captain rang down for half speed. The order being simultaneously received by both engine-rooms, resulted in a gradual slowing down till the mud-flats of Portsmouth Harbour hove in sight. Even then the "Meteor" overhauled a naval seaplane as quickly as an express runs past a "suburban" crawling into Clapham Junction.
"Still sou'west," remarked Whittinghame pointing to the smoke that was pouring out of a tall chimney between Fareham and Gosport. "We'll bring her head to wind in any case."
Down swooped the "Meteor" till she was less than three hundred feet from the ground. She was now following the main road to Gosport. On her left could be discerned the battleships and cruisers in the harbour, their decks and riggings black with men, while hundreds of craft of various sizes, crowded with spectators, literally swarmed on the tidal waters between the Dockyard and the western shore.