We left at 7.30 a.m., and climbed to two thousand five hundred feet to get above the heat-haze and fog over the water.
At eight-twenty-five, almost an hour later, the revolutions of the eight-foot tractor began slackening perceptibly, and presently, to our dismay, the engine stopped dead.
We were compelled to descend so quickly that there was no time to send a wireless signal; in fact, I just barely managed to cut the trailing aerial wire free before we struck the sea.
That I did so was a slice of luck, as, otherwise, the fuselage would probably have been ripped up, and the machine capsized.
When the floats smacked the water we got quite a bump, and a decided jar in the nape of our necks.
Fortunately, however, the under-carriage struts retained their rigidity and did not buckle, and the seaplane rode the water right way up.
I will not worry the reader with a technical explanation of the trouble which had befallen our engine. Sufficient to state that it was of so serious a nature as to preclude us from any attempt at "patching her up."
"Do you know where we are?" inquired the pilot, after we had heartily chorused a round of expletives appropriate to such an eventuality. I shook my head.
It must be remembered we had been travelling through fog most of the journey, and therefore could not spot the regular aids to maritime aerial pilotage, such as light-vessels, sandbanks, buoys, and coast contours. In addition to this there are always air currents about, to counteract a dead compass-reckoning alone.