The wind was approaching a rate of two hundred miles an hour, and as the Air Monarch was not making that speed she was being blown back, and her propellers were not even holding her stationary in the gale. Not only was she being forced back, but she was being forced downward.
“We’ve got to have more power!” cried Tom. “Turn on the super-gas!”
“There isn’t much left,” said Hartman. “You were to save that for the last lap!”
“There won’t be any last lap if we don’t get above this typhoon!” shouted Tom. “Turn it on!”
“On she goes!” echoed the mechanic.
With Hartman at the super-charger, while Tom and Peltok managed the wheel, Ned and Brinkley looked to the oiling systems. If they failed now, when it was necessary to run the motors at their top speed, it would be disastrous.
Though the wind howled about them and heavy rain now dashed against the thick plate glass of the windows, and though the typhoon was increasing in power, it was soon evident that the machine was doing better. With the increase in speed and power of the motors, because of Tom’s newly invented gas, the Air Monarch began to recover lost ground, and soon she began progressing straight into the teeth of the hurricane. To have turned and sailed before it would have meant that she would be turned over and over, her wings shorn off and that she would be dropped into the raging sea, a helpless wreck.
“We’ll make it! We’ll make it!” exulted Tom, as he saw the speed indicator hand slowly move along until it was passing the two hundred mark. He knew his ship was capable of over two hundred and fifty miles an hour, or more than four miles a minute, though how long she could keep up this speed was a problem. And the young inventor knew he could not hope to reach that goal with a typhoon blowing against him at more than half that speed.
So Tom was satisfied when he saw his craft making a little more than the two hundred mile rate, and he had hopes of coming out of the contest not only with a whole skin himself but with his plane intact.
Howling and yelling, the wind threatened to tear the machine apart. But the Air Monarch was stanchly made, and she forged ahead. Now and then some more violent outburst than usual caused the craft to dip down toward the raging sea, but Tom and Peltok forced her up again, and she rode above the waves, though sometimes perilously close to their crests.