"Have you been successful?" asked Athol.
"To a certain extent; that is to say, I have treated petrol so as to make it unresponsive at ordinary pressure except to a very hot spark."
Still conversing Desmond Blake led the way from the house, through a dense belt of pine trees, to a small clearing. The greater part of this space was occupied by a galvanised iron shed, at one end of which were large double doors. Between the threshold and the nearmost trees there was a distance of roughly ninety feet, the trees themselves exceeding a hundred and twenty feet in height.
"Here's the hangar," announced their guide, indicating the shed.
"Curious situation, if you don't mind my saying so," observed Athol. "You'll have to cut down more of those trees before the biplane is able to take flight."
"On the contrary there is more 'taking-off' space than is absolutely necessary, and, I might add, the machine is not a biplane. It is fashioned, as far as possible, on the principle of a bird, and unless my memory plays me false, I know of no bird possessing more than two wings. But here we are."
Desmond Blake rolled back one of the doors of the shed. The other, actuated by means of a flexible wire running over pulleys, slid back too.
"Merely a labour-saving device," said Blake. "I based my calculations upon a one-man show. But what do you think of her?"
In the dazzling reflected light from the snow the battleplane stood revealed to the lads' eager gaze. At first sight it hardly resembled a flying machine. It was more like a huge cigar raised at an angle of forty-five degrees and supported by a pair of trellis girders each of which in turn terminated in a couple of pneumatic-tyred wheels. The planes were folded against the fuselage; there were no signs of aerilons, horizontal or vertical rudders and other contrivances common to aeroplanes. This creation had the appearance of a gaunt, featherless bird standing erect on a pair of spidery legs.
"What propels it?" asked Dick. "Where is the propeller? And the planes? You said it was not a biplane. To me it looks like a nonplane. Hope I am not asking too many questions," he added apologetically.