"So she would," admitted the inventor dubiously.
"Separate magnetos by all means," continued Dick, "but it would be well to fit a free wheel sprocket on the main shaft of each engine, and arrange it so that each motor actuates both wings. Then if one engine falters or stops the other will continue to propel the battleplane. Of course you would only have half the power, but that would be sufficient to keep her in the air."
Desmond Blake thought deeply for a few minutes.
"By smoke, Dick!" he exclaimed. "You've solved a knotty point. We'll make the necessary alterations directly we return. You are quite right about the power of each motor. Each possesses one and a half times the lifting power necessary for the battleplane."
By nine o'clock in the evening the adjustments to the magneto were satisfactorily carried out, and the battleplane's wings having been folded to escape an accumulation of snow, the airmen turned in for the night.
As Blake had surmised the night passed without interruption. Little did the inhabitants of the picturesque village of Kenilworth suspect that the most ingenious flying machine that the world had yet possessed was resting quietly in the snow-covered courtyard of the famous mediaeval ruin.
So soundly did the two lads sleep in their comfortable bunks that the first intimation they had of the arrival of another day was Desmond Blake's voice exclaiming,
"Now, then, you fellows. Five o'clock and a fine morning."
A cup of hot coffee and some biscuits having been served out, the airmen prepared to resume their flight. It was still twilight. Snowflakes were falling, although not with the violence that characterised yesterday's storm. From a not far distant farmyard cocks were lustily heralding the dawn.
Silently, under the guidance of the masterhand, the huge mechanical bird left its roosting place on the snow covered ground and soared swiftly upwards until it attained a height of two thousand feet.