“Excuse me,” he gasped; “but look at that!” Tangled in the patch was the dilapidated ruin of a large kite of the Malay or tailless type. Most of the paper had blown away, but what remained was of an oily finish, and exhaled a slight odour. Professor Ravenden looked at it carefully, and an expression of deep humiliation overspread his mild face.
“I do not resent your amusement, Dr. Colton,” he said. “To you gentlemen I must seem, as indeed I do to myself, an unworthy and fearful disciple of science.”
“Not in the least,” said Haynes quickly. “Your experience was enough to frighten anyone.”
“I should have run like a rabbit,” declared Colton positively. “I laughed because it seemed such a ridiculous ending to my own forebodings.”
“Perhaps it isn’t entirely ridiculous either,” said Haynes, who had been examining the kite cord, slowly. “There’s something queer about this. Where did those kites come from, and how?”
“Broke away, of course,” said Dick.
“Supposing you try to break that string. You’re a husky specimen.”
“Can’t do it,” said the doctor, after exerting his strength. “It’s the finest kind of light braided line.”
“And it hasn’t been broken, in my opinion,” said the reporter. “Look at those ends.”
“Cut! Clean cut!” exclaimed Colton.