"That's the way I feel," agreed Matt. "The weather's good, the wind favoring, and all we can do is to keep fanning along. By to-morrow, something may happen to give things a brighter look. Go forward, Dick, watch the maps and keep a sharp lookout. Let me know where we are from time to time."
The motor hummed steadily, and hour after hour the Hawk clove her way through the air. They passed over Newport News and Norfolk, and could see the inhabitants of each town running along the streets and looking up at them.
All sounds from the earth reached those in the air ship with weird distinctness. The cries of the people, the galloping hoofs of a horse, the rattle of a wagon floated upward, clear and strong.
Questions were shouted to the boys, but before they could have answered the swiftly moving Hawk had carried them out of earshot. They made it a rule to do no talking with the people below, not having the time for any extended conversation and knowing well that what little they could say would only increase the general curiosity instead of lessening it.
Well to the south of Norfolk the air ship reached out along the Carolina coast. When the sun went down, and it was falling dark, lights were beginning to gleam in a city which, from the maps, the boys knew to be Wilmington. Matt's watch told him it was seven o'clock. They had been twelve hours on the wing and had covered a distance which, by air line, measured more than five hundred miles.
It was decided by the boys that the night should be divided into three watches, and that during each watch one of them should take his "turn below," as Dick expressed it.
During the first watch, from seven to eleven, Dick was to be in charge of the motor and Carl was to take the lookout, while Matt slept; from eleven to three, Matt was to look after the motor, Carl was to continue on lookout duty, and Dick was to sleep; and from three to seven, Carl was to sleep and Dick was to relieve him.
As soon as the lights of Wilmington had died into a glow behind the car, Matt laid himself down beside Townsend and was soon "taking his stretch off the land, full and by, forty knots," as Dick remarked to Carl.
Matt had slept nearly his allotted four hours, although it did not seem to him as though he had much more than closed his eyes, when he was aroused by the report of a firearm and a startled yell from Carl.
In a twinkling the young motorist was on his feet, hanging to the rail, peering about him and asking what was the matter.