The Winged Arrow swooped and rebounded from her wheels. The truck groaned and the tail of the boat began to drag. Her speed was soon brought down, she halted, Koku slid back the main door in the hull of the boat and was about to thrust out the narrow gangplank.
But Ned had spied something that the others had not at first noted. Marching in the van of the crowd from town were about two dozen uniformed men bearing rifles on their shoulders.
“Seems to me,” said Ned, pointing out this military party, “the Iceland militia may want to interfere with our landing, Tom. What say?”
“A warm reception, is it?” asked Kingston, sticking his head out of the radio coop.
“Hold on!” cried Tom, beckoning to Koku. “Don’t let anybody get aboard yet, boy.”
Koku dropped the end of the gangplank and in a couple of strides reached his long spear and war club. When he appeared at the open door again his appearance was, to say the least, rather warlike.
The military, or policemen, or whatever they were, warned the boys back, and most of the men and women remained at a safe distance from the flying boat. But one excited individual, who seemed to have some influence with the squad of soldiers, pushed up close to the seaplane and began to shout.
“If the only language they use here is the kind that old friend of Mr. Damon’s tried to use in New York,” said Ned, who had heard about Aman Dele’s troubles, “we’ll have a sweet time learning what they want or making them understand what we want.”
“Of course many folks on the island understand English,” declared Tom, and went to the open door which Koku so savagely guarded.
“This is the flying boat from America—yes?” asked the excited man in broken English.