So it was arranged, and Tom, still with a faint hope in his heart that he might at least come in a good second if not the winner of the world race, turned on a little more power and headed for the east. There lay the United States, and once over that territory there remained only the last part of the flight—across the continent.
The motors of the Air Monarch were not behaving as well as Tom liked, and he had an idea it was due to the poor quality of the last gasoline he had put into his tanks. He dared not use the last of his super-fuel, but he hoped in Hawaii to get some better than the last.
If worse came to worst, he thought he could finish the race in his Airline Express craft, but he wanted to do it in the Air Monarch. It would be much more satisfactory, he told Ned, who agreed with him.
It was only half a day’s travel from where the shipwrecked ones had been picked up to the harbor of Honolulu, and it was about mid afternoon when Ned, who was on watch, gave the cry:
“Land ho! All out for Hawaii!”
The beautiful islands were looming ahead of them through the mist. Quarter of an hour later they made out Diamond Head and knew they were close to Honolulu, the chief city of the territory.
Tom was in the pilot house, prepared to make a landing, if such a term is permissible when one means to drop into the water. He had headed the craft for a spot somewhat outside a harbor, intending to taxi up into it to avoid the shipping when, suddenly, Sam, one of the shipwrecked sailors, who was looking from the pilot house window, pointed to a spot directly in front of them and cried:
“There she blows!”
“What?” asked Tom, though a second later he realized what was meant.
“A whale!” cried the sailor. “There she blows, and you’re going to bump right into her!”