“Yes, a shooting star that’s burned its way through the earth’s atmosphere.”
“But I don’t see—”
Jack did not finish, for all of a sudden he realized that the thing, whatever it might be, had passed directly over their heads and was now speeding east.
“It—it’s gone by!” Jack exclaimed. “Danger’s over.” He experienced intense relief.
“I wonder,” was the Commander’s strange reply.
“Whew! that was fast, sir!”
“Fast?” the Commander added in a lower tone. “Faster than any plane you’ve ever flown, Jack my boy!”
“I wouldn’t doubt it, sir,” Jack laughed.
“Or ever will fly,” the Commander added.
In this last statement he was entirely wrong, as future events were to prove.