With this, he gave me a firm hand-clasp that plainly was meant for a possible farewell, and followed the aviator into the plane. In a few moments they were off, their new type of noiseless motor making scarcely a sound, and soon were climbing towards the summits of the snow-crowned peaks to the eastward. Almost before we realized it, they were lost from sight.
It was my intention to keep watch through the night for the return of my friend; but after several hours I fell asleep and knew no more until dawn was reddening the mountaintops. Then the throbbing of the destroyer’s engines awakened me, and I hurried on deck to find Dr. Gresham himself giving orders for the vessel’s movements.
The scientist never once referred to the events of the night as he partook of a light breakfast and went to bed. However, I could tell by his manner that he had not met with success.
Slowly the ship continued northward most of that day, through the awesome fastnesses of Fitz Hugh Sound, until we reached the mouth of a grim fiord set down on the charts as Dean Channel. Here we cast anchor.
Late in the afternoon Dr. Gresham put in his appearance, viewed the mainland through his glasses, and then went into the ship’s hold to study his earthquake recorder. What he observed apparently pleased him.
This night also was moonlit and crystal-clear; and, as before, when daylight had departed, the doctor reminded me of the sealed orders I held against his failure to return at sunrise, bade me farewell, and started off in the airship, flying straight toward the range of peaks that walled the eastern world.
On this occasion a series of remarkable happenings removed all difficulty of my keeping awake.
About 10 o’clock, when I chanced to be visiting in the commander’s cabin, an officer came and informed us of some strange lights that had been observed above the mountains at a distance inland. We went on deck and, sure enough, beheld a peculiar and inexplicable phenomenon.
To the northeast the heavens were illuminated at intervals by flashes of white light extending, fan-shaped, far overhead. The display was as brilliant and beautiful as it was mysterious. For a good while we watched it—until I was suddenly struck with the regularity of the intervals between the flashes. Timing the lights with my watch, I found they occurred precisely eleven minutes and six seconds apart!
With a new idea in mind, I made a note of the exact instant when each flash appeared; then I went down into the hold of the ship and looked at Dr. Gresham’s hydro-seismograph. As I suspected, the aerial flashes had occurred simultaneously with the earthquakes.