Rallying himself with an effort, Ned began his dangerous crawl along the framework. The further out from the main structure of the craft he got the more nerve-racking became the task. The slender framework shook and swayed as if it was determined to shake him off, and send him flying into space.
Ned gripped his handholds till the paint flaked off on his palms. But little by little he managed to work his way toward the bearing. The propeller, a whirring blur before his eyes, dazzled him. The wind from it seemed to catch his breath and jam it back down his throat. He clung to his perch with the courage of desperation.
At last he reached a point from which he could reach the bearing. He raised the oil cup and doused the smoking metal with oil. And then, his duty done, he was horrified to feel a sudden wave of deadly nausea sweep over him. The sea seemed to rush up toward him, and his senses swam in a wild delirium.
“I must get back! I must! I must!” he said to himself, and then the terrible grip of air-sickness descended upon him again and again, and deprived him of all power to move.
Almost three thousand feet in the air, perched on a slender, bucking framework, and a prey to the most severe form of air-sickness, Ned’s position was perilous, indeed.
Suddenly he felt his senses leaving him. For a second he fought against insensibility with all the power he possessed. But it overmastered him. Ned felt his head swimming round and round like a detached body in an aurora of blazing light. All at once something seemed to give way.
Then a blackness like night shut down upon him and he knew no more.
It was perhaps a quarter of an hour later when Tom presented himself to Jack and announced that he was fit for duty.
“Very well, Tom, go back to your post and send Ned to resume his.”
Tom left the cabin. In less than ten seconds he was back. His face was blanched and his lips white. Jack noticed he was trembling violently.
“What in the world is the matter, are you ill?” demanded Jack.
“What’s up? Anything the matter with him?”
“That’s right. I went aft and there was no sign of him. Joyce says nothing has been seen of him up forward.”
The boys faced each other with the fear of a great calamity on their faces. If Ned was not on board he must have fallen from the Electric Monarch while she was in mid-air. In such a case there was no need to debate over the fate of the young comrade they had grown to love.