Suddenly Joyce’s deep bass voice came booming from the forward lookout, from which position he had been scanning the sea with binoculars.
Instantly the Electric Monarch fairly vibrated excitement. Ned hastened into the pilot house to Jack’s side. He found the young skipper with the binoculars at his eyes.
“I’m not quite certain, yet. Whatever it is, it appears to be almost floating on the sea. It may be a small craft, and the floating effect may be caused by a refraction of the light or it may be----”
The next moment Joyce’s voice came thrilling through the speaking tube from the foreward lookout.
“It’s a balloon! She’s almost in the sea!”
Simultaneously Jack had descried what the distant object was. “The balloon” as Joyce called it was, without doubt, the Sky Eagle. But the dirigible was perilously near to the water. In fact she appeared to be almost touching the surface. Would they be in time?
“Hold tight!” warned Jack. “I’m going to let her out every notch.”
With a deep whirring roar the propellers began to beat the air faster. As they churned the atmosphere at fifteen hundred revolutions a minute, the Electric Monarch responded nobly to the powerful impulse. She was making faster speed than ever before. The hand of the indicator crept up and up.
“Fifty--fifty-five--sixty--sixty-five--seventy!”
“Seventy miles an hour!” gasped Ned. “Will she hold together?”
“She’s got to,” said Jack grimly, as he grasped the spokes of his wheel more firmly. At that speed the “pull” of the rudder was terrific. He only hoped that it would not be dragged out of its fastenings.
The Electric Monarch’s frame creaked and complained, and every brace and wire in her structure hummed a separate song as they cut through the air. Luckily, the wind was with them, or the craft, strong as she was, might not have endured the cruel strain.
Every second brought them closer to the stranded and disabled dirigible. They could see the unfortunate craft quite plainly now. She lay with a shriveled and collapsed gas bag almost on the surface of the waves. A jagged rent in one side showed what had brought her down into such perilous proximity to the waves.
From time to time, so close was she to the water, a larger wave than usual would lap up against the under part of the craft’s structure, and drench the men marooned on board the sinking dirigible.