CHAPTER X
THE HAUNTED AERODROME
The excitable Leblance was on his feet in an instant. Dave reached the side of Mr. King and glanced quickly at the paper he had opened out.
“Impossible—so poorly equipped! Incredible—so quickly!” almost shouted the Frenchman.
“The Dictator has sailed, just the same,” announced the veteran airman, conclusively. “I’ll read it to you.”
Every word of the article in the newspaper was taken in absorbedly by the persons in the room. According to it, the Dictator had made a splendid ascent from Senca at two o’clock that afternoon. The red, white and blue appearance of the great gas bag had evoked the most patriotic enthusiasm, and cheers and flag-waving had accompanied the flight.
The Dictator, according to the report, would float southward overland till a point near Baltimore was reached. Here a descent would be made to learn its condition, the machinery carefully scanned, and the ocean course begun. Then followed an interview given out by Davidson on the superiority of his double monoplane apparatus. There was, too, a portrait of Davidson and one of Jerry Dawson. The article wound up with a reference to the Albatross, which it stated, would soon be hot on the heels of the Dictator.
“They have got the lead,” observed Mr. Dale, in an anxious tone, the one of the group most disquieted by the newspaper article.
Professor Leblance shrugged his shoulders. He waved his hand to express ridicule. His long, waxed mustache curled up in disdain.
“It is absurd,” he said. “Do I not know? An egg shell like that—no science, no reserve force. Bah! I laugh at it.”
All the same the volatile Frenchman beckoned Mr. King to the next room. In low, serious tones they held quite an extended conversation. At its end Leblance hurried from the house. Mr. King returned to his friends with a serious face.