But the gas had escaped so rapidly and the weight in the car was so great, that the island was still a few hundred feet off when they first felt the wind-driven spray dashing against their faces.
“Can we make it?” asked Mr. Jesson in a low, tense voice.
“I think so,” replied Jack; “at any rate, if we can’t, we have the cork jackets on and must swim for it.”
As he spoke, though, the disabled flying craft settled suddenly downward. Above her the collapsed gas envelope was wrinkled and flabby, and barely kept her up.
All at once the crest of a huge wave dashed against the bottom of the aluminum tank. The Flying Road Racer careened so far over that for a moment it looked as if her end had come.
But at the same moment the wind blew stronger and caught the half-empty gas bag. This raised the crippled craft a few feet and drove her forward. The impetus thus given was sufficient to save the adventurers from a dangerous swim.
With a crash that might have been audible at some distance had there been any one to hear it the Flying Road Racer landed in the sand of the island beach at precisely one-thirty on that day of stirring events in the young inventors lives.
Thanks to the shock absorbers, the auto part was not harmed seriously. Five minutes after they had landed the adventurers stood in a group surveying the stranded craft.
“What a wreck!” exclaimed Mr. Jesson, gazing the flabby wrinkles of the gas envelope and at the wound in its side.
The Flying Road Racer did, indeed, look different from the trim craft that had arisen from the deck of the Vagrant not so very long before.