"What a deuce of a noise she will make--like a whole formation of Gothas, I should imagine," said Max.
The professor smiled, but left it to the Rittmeister to explain this last point.
"The engines are silent, but there is a slight hum from the propellers. That cannot be effaced at present, but it is nothing."
Then, having given all these details, the visitors made a closer inspection of the machine. They were permitted to climb into the conning-tower, to handle the controls, and the two swivel machine guns mounted there. They were shown into the little cabin, where four men might sit at the little table, or lie down at full length, but could not stand upright. The steel struts, steel folding wings, the carefully packed spares, the little mica windows in the cabin--these, and a dozen other things, were pointed out and explained to them--the stores which were already packed, comprising chronometrical instruments, maps, charts, ammunition for the guns, compressed food, etc., until their bewilderment grew, and their astonishment became unbounded.
"Why, she scarcely needs an aerodrome at all!" Carl ventured at length.
"Scarcely," replied the chief. "At any rate, not for a long time."
"She is weather proof; she is wonderfully camouflaged. She could hide in a desert, or a meadow," said Max.
"And she carries her own stores for a long, long trip," ventured Carl, who was just dying for the morrow to come.
"And if she were chased, she could make rings round anything, even a Fokker scout, or a verdammt British S.E.5," added Max.
"So you are satisfied, both of you?" asked the Rittmeister.