The two airmen resumed their coats, switched on their searchlight, and made a rapid examination of the engine, which appeared to have suffered no injury:  then took their places.  When the sparking began, and noisome smoke poured from the exhaust, the workmen again yelled, but as the machine, after a short run, sailed noisily into the air, they fell prostrate in utter consternation.

CHAPTER VI

WITH GUN RUNNERS IN THE GULF

A glance at the sodden map showed Smith that he had been driven at least fifty miles out of his course.  He could not afford time to return to the Euphrates:  he would now have to follow the course of the Tigris until it joined the larger river.  It would be folly to attempt a direct flight to Karachi, for in so doing he would have to pass over the mountainous districts of Southern Persia and Baluchistan, where, if any mishap befel the aeroplane, there would be absolutely no chance of finding assistance.  Luckily the moon was rising, and by its light he was soon able to strike the Tigris near the spot where it flowed between the hills Gebel Hamrin and Gebel Mekhul into the Babylonian plain.  From this point, keeping the hills well on his left, he steered south-east until about midnight he came upon an immense expanse of water, shimmering below him in the moonlight, which he concluded to be nothing else but the Persian Gulf.

By this time he was both tired and hungry.  Rodier and he had eaten a few biscuits spread with Bovril, and drunk soda-water, while they were examining the engine, but they both felt ravenous for a good square meal.  Smith, however, had set his heart on completing his flight to Karachi, where his scheme would allow an hour or two for rest and food, and he was the more determined to carry out his programme, if possible, because of the delay caused by the storm.

His plan was to keep close to the left shore of the Persian Gulf, not following its indentations, but never losing sight of the sea.  The coast, he saw by the map, made a gentle curve for some six hundred miles, then swept southward opposite the projecting Oman peninsula, and thence ran almost due east to Karachi.  The coast was for the most part hilly, and as he was now travelling at full speed there was always a risk, unless he flew high, of his being brought up by a spur or a rock jutting out into the Gulf; and as he did not wish to maintain too great an altitude, he altered his course a point or two to the south, flying over the sea, but not far from the shore.

Rodier and he took turns at the engine, each dozing from sheer weariness during his spell off.  They flew on all through the night, and when dawn began to break, saw straight ahead land stretching far to right and left.  There was no doubt that this was the Oman peninsula, which, jutting out from the Arabian mainland, almost closes the Gulf.  Steering now a slightly more northward course, and rising to clear the hills of the peninsula, Smith passed over the neck of land, and found himself in the Gulf of Oman, half-way between the head of the Persian Gulf and Karachi.