Accordingly, the elevation rudder was used to send the Red Cloud to a greater height while she was still skimming along like some great bird. Of course the desired elevation could have been obtained by forcing more gas from the machine into the big, red container overhead, but it was decided to be as sparing of this vapor as possible, since the voyagers did not want to descend to get more material, in case they used up what they had. It was just as easy to rise by properly working the rudders, when the ship was in motion, and that was the method now employed.
With the great propellers, fore and aft, making about a thousand revolutions a minute the craft slanted up toward the sky.
The ship was not being run at top speed as Mr. Sharp did not care to force it, and there was no need for haste. Long distance, rather than high speed was being aimed at on this first important flight.
Tom was at the steering wheel, and, with his hand on the lever controlling the elevation rudder, kept watch of the face of Mr. Damon, occasionally noting what height the hand on the gauge registered. He fancied he saw the cheeks of his friend growing pale, and, when a height of thirty-five hundred feet was indicated, with a yank the young inventor put the airship on a level keel.
"Are you distressed, Mr. Damon?" he asked.
"Ye—yes, I—I have—some—some difficulty in breathing," was the answer.
Tom gave his friend the same advice the aeronaut had given the lad on his first trip, and the eccentric man soon felt better.
"Bless my buttons!" he ventured to explain. "But I feel as if I had lost several pounds of flesh, and I'm glad of it."
Mr. Sharp was busy with the motor, which needed some slight adjustments, and Tom was in sole charge of navigating the airship. He had lost the nervous feeling that first possessed him, and was becoming quite an expert at meeting various currents of wind encountered in the upper regions.
Below, the voyagers could see the earth spread out like a great map. They could not tell their exact location now, but by calculating their speed, which was about thirty miles an hour, Tom figured out that they were above the town of Centreford, near where he had been attacked once by the model thieves.