“The objection to those routes,” explained the young airman, “is that the water stretches are of wide extent. What I dread most is the fear of being caught away from land.”
“Is there a shorter route than those you speak of?” asked Hiram.
“Yes, there is,” asserted Dave.
“What is it?”
“Egypt, the Sahara Desert, the French Congo, Ascension Island, St. Helena, Trinidad, Rio Janeiro, and we are on American soil.”
“Capital!” cried Hiram.
“I wouldn’t lose an hour, Dave,” advised Elmer, with real anxiety. “Ever since we found out that there are two of the crowd ahead of us, it seems as if I’d be willing to sleep in the seat in the machine all the way to get ahead of them.”
It was a warm, clear day when the Comet came to a rest at the city of Mayamlia, in French Congo. Looking back over the ten days consumed in making the run across Egypt, through Fezzan, the width of the great desert, over darkest Africa, and into the Soudan, the airship boys had viewed a country never before thus inspected by an aerial explorer.
“Baked, boiled, and soaked,” was the way Hiram put it, good-naturedly, but very grimly.
“And sandstorms and deluges,” added Elmer, with a grimace.