"Let's hope your troubles are now over, my man," quoth Blake as he took his seat at the helm. "All ready, Dick?... Hold on a minute."
The smith, finding that his assistant was on the point of being spirited away in the huge flying machine, came floundering towards them. Much as he feared being left alone with the pugnacious Englishman he dreaded having to report his loss to the commandant of the prison camp.
"Good-bye, smith," shouted Dick in German. "Don't be in too great a hurry to inform the authorities that you have been aiding the English by repairing one of their battleplanes. Kaiser Wilhelm might be very angry with you."
The next instant the machine rose with a bound, and fleeting before the still strong westerly gale, resumed her flight towards the Russian frontier, leaving the astonished and dumfounded smith to realise the magnitude of his unwitting offence against the German Empire.
For the next few hours the aerial voyage was comparatively uneventful. The rescued prisoner, who gave his name as Private Tom Smith, of the "Chalkshires," and who had been taken prisoner early in the campaign, was now fast asleep, after a good hot meal and a change of clothing.
The battleplane, flying at an immense height, was now far above the rain-clouds and bathed in brilliant sunshine. Looking downwards nothing was visible of the earth, a seemingly unlimitable expanse of dazzling white clouds forming an effectual screen between the airmen and the dreary soil of East Prussia.
"Time we descended to verify our position," announced Blake. "Although in this case it is preferable to overshoot the mark we don't want a long flight against this gale if we can help it."
Cleaving her way through the clouds and leaving an eddying wake of fleecy vapour behind her, the battleplane again came within sight of the earth.
It was no longer raining. A clear view could be obtained for miles—but instead of the flat plains of Russia a vast sea met the airmen's gaze.
"We're a bit out," declared Blake. "We're right over the Baltic."