“I don’t quite know what the idea is myself, yet,” confessed the young inventor. “But something has got to be done, and I am willing to try—Here we go again!”
Once more the huge, groaning structure rolled. If it looked bad to those on the ground, consider how the crew of the Winged Arrow felt!
The usual kind of an equilibrator—that used in the government of most dirigible balloons and other flying craft—was a part of the Winged Arrow’s equipment, but in this strange case the instrument seemed to have no value at all. The great hull of the seaplane certainly did not balance.
Whether Tom drove the mechanism fast or slow, the rolling continued. No matter how strongly the structure was built, such wrenching must of necessity in time wreck the seaplane.
They were now a mile or more high in the air. If the plane fell apart at this altitude there would not be the smallest hope of escape for any of her crew. Tom had tried to descend, but she seemed to roll worse on a downward than on an upward slant.
“Brannigan! Make use of that pump!” Tom shouted through the tube.
“Aye, aye, sir!” came back the reply.
The finger on the dial had begun to move. The vacuum between the jackets of the hull began to fill with air. The plane regained an even keel again for a moment and Tom felt a tremor of the hull which he knew to be from the pressure of the air driven into the vacuum.
“What are you doing, Tom?” demanded Ned, putting his lips close to his friend’s ear.
“Trying a new one. Great Scott! Ned, if my suspicion is right, I have worked a scheme for balancing an object floating in air which as far as I know is an entirely new trick. I have invented something—perhaps—without the first idea that I was doing anything extraordinary.”