“Well, I thought I’d better make a big one to make sure of you,” replied Barracombe.

Smith waited with his hand on the lever until the fire-engine had dashed up.

“What the blazes!” cried the captain, as he leapt from his seat, looking from the motor-car to the aeroplane with mingled amazement and indignation.

“Good-bye, Billy,” cried Smith; “I’ll leave you to explain.”

The propeller whirled round, the machine flew forwards, and in a few seconds was soaring with its booming hum into the air.  Smith glanced down and saw the fireman facing Barracombe, his annoyance being evidently greater than his curiosity.  He would have smiled if he could have heard Barracombe’s explanation.

“W-w-why yes,” he said, affecting a distressing stutter; “this kind of b-b-bonfire is a hobby of m-mine; it’s about my only r-r-recreation.  M-m-my name?  Certainly.  My name’s William bub-bub-Barracombe, and you’ll find me in, any day between t-ten and f-five, at 532 mum-mum-Mincing Lane.”

CHAPTER III

ACROSS EUROPE TO THE BOSPHOROUS

It had just turned half-past twelve on Friday morning when Smith said good-bye to his friend William Barracombe on Epsom Downs.  The sky was clear; the moon shone so brightly that by its light alone he could read the compass at his elbow, without the aid of the small electric lamp that hung above it.  He set his course for the south-east, and flew with a light breeze at a speed of at least two hundred miles an hour.

His machine was a biplane, and represented the work and thought of years.  Smith never minimized the part which Laurent Rodier had had in its construction; indeed, he was wont to say that without Rodier he would have been nowhere.  Their acquaintance and comradeship had begun in the most accidental way.  Two years before, Smith was taking part in an aeroplane race from Paris to London.  On reaching the Channel, he found himself far ahead of all his competitors, except a Frenchman, who, to his chagrin, managed to keep a lead of almost a mile.  Each carried a passenger.  Not long after leaving the French coast, a cloud of smoke suddenly appeared in the wake of the Frenchman’s aeroplane, and to Smith’s alarm the machine in a few seconds dropped into the sea.  Instantly he steered for the spot, and brought his own aeroplane to within a few feet of the water.  To his surprise, he saw that part of the wreckage was floating, and a man, apparently only half conscious, was clinging to one of the stays.  But for the engine having providentially become disconnected in the fall, the whole machine with its passengers must have sunk to the bottom.

Smith saw that it was impossible for him to rescue the man while he himself remained in his aeroplane, for the slightest touch upon the other would inevitably have submerged it.  There was only one thing to do.  Leaving the aeroplane to the charge of his friend, he dived into the sea, and rising beside the man, seized him at the moment when his hold was relaxing, and contrived to hold him up until a fast motor launch, which had witnessed the accident, came up and rescued them both.