But, smooth or rough, Tom hoped that he would not be obliged to descend in the seaplane until the Winged Arrow arrived at her destination. He had taken every precaution, he believed, for the long and arduous flight. The speed at which they traveled encouraged him to believe that his hope would be realized.
As they went on, flying so high that shipping on the sea could only be distinguished through the glass, the atmosphere became very cold. They were getting farther away from the source of earth heat and the thermometer fastened outside one of the windows of the pilot room showed a rapid decline of the fluid.
Every man aboard the great flying boat had been dressed in warm clothing—the batten-lined leather suits of the ordinary flying men—when they left the ground. But Tom had furnished fur coats and hoods and gloves for them all. Their boots were sheepskin lined. Water began to freeze inside the boat; but the crew kept warm.
Their breath began to congeal upon the inside of the windows and Ned spent most of his time cleaning the glass with alcohol. Kingston at first had sent news of the flight by wireless; but now the altitude and the temperature interfered with the working of the radio. Static made the sending and receiving of messages all but impossible.
The member of the crew who acted as cook brought coffee and sandwiches into the cabin and reported that the electric heaters did not work as well as previously and that it was difficult to boil water.
“We are up pretty high,” Tom admitted; “but I believe if I scale her down much we shall be buffeted a good deal by head winds. We are making excellent time as she is. If we can stand the cold until nightfall——”
“Go ahead,” replied Ned. “I might as well be a frozen turnip as the way I am,” he grumbled. “Do you see Iceland yet?”
“I’ll wake you up when I see Olaf Karofsen smoking his pipe on the dock at Reykjavik,” scoffed Tom.
It was cold! And the idea of waiting until nightfall before dropping to a lower altitude was found not to be feasible. In the first place, they had flown into the region of long twilight. Darkness did not come until near midnight.
The Winged Arrow had by that time flown more than a thousand miles. Her inventor did not push her to her top-notch speed, but the time she made was perfectly satisfactory.