"There's a farmhouse down there," said the hunter.
"What did I tell yo'?" cried Washington White. "Dat Buttsy knows his business, all right!"
"We must descend," commanded the professor. "Deflect the planes, Jack. Watch the indicator. Reduce the speed. Let us float down as easily as possible."
But, wrestling as the flying machine was with the wind, she could not descend easily. She scaled earthward with fearful velocity. The irrepressible Jack yelled:
"Go-ing down! We're going to bump hard in a minute!"
The aged professor and Andy Sudds showed no perturbation. Jack and
Mark had been through so many wonderful experiences with the professor,
Andy, and the negro, that they were not likely to be panic-stricken. Yet
all realized that death was imminent.
The finger on the dial showed a hundred feet from earth, and still they descended. Fifty feet!
"Hold hard!" commanded the professor. "We'll be down in a minute."
There seemed to be a break in the hurrying clouds. There was light in the sky—the twilight of the Long Day, for they were far beyond the Arctic Circle.
Looking down they could dimly see objects on the earth—trees, a house of some kind—several houses, in fact.