“Send in your bill,” he cried.  “Ready, Roddy?”

“All right, mister.”

They jumped into their seats.  Smith called to the men to stand clear, and pulled the lever.  At the same moment Rodier switched on the searchlight.  The propellers flew round with deafening whirr; the aeroplane shot forward for thirty or forty yards along the road, then rose like a bird into the air.

The men stood with mouths agape as the machine flew over the tree-tops, its light diminishing to a pin-point, its clamour sinking to the quiet hum of a bee, and then fading away altogether.  In a minute it had totally disappeared.

“Daze me if ever I seed anything like that afore,” said the farmer.  “A mile a minute, what?”

“More like two,” said the motorman.  “I lay she’ll be in Portsmouth afore I’m half-a-mile up road.  Good-night, farmer, I’m off to the Three Waggoners.”

“Bust if I don’t go, too.  There be summat to wet our whistles on to-night, eh, men?”

CHAPTER II

Eastward Ho!

Before the farmer reached the hospitable door of the Three Waggoners, Smith had made his descent upon a broad open space in his father’s park near Cosham.  There stood the large shed in which he housed the aeroplane; adjoining it were a number of workshops.  It was quite dark now, and no one was about; but Smith clearly had no intention of putting his machine up for the night.  As soon as he came to the ground he hurried off on foot in one direction, Rodier on a bicycle in another, their purposeful movements betokening a course of action arranged during the few minutes’ conversation at the farm.

Smith walked rapidly through the park, and, entering the house, found his mother placidly knitting on a settee in the large old-fashioned hall.

“Ah, my dear boy,” she said, as he appeared; “how late you are, and how dirty!  We have waited dinner for you.”

“You shouldn’t have done that, mother,” he replied cheerfully; “though it’s very good of you.”

“Well, you see, it’s your last night with us for ever so long, and with Tom and your father away—­”

“Yes, I’m sorry I’m so late,” Smith broke in hastily.  “We were caught in a mist.  I shan’t be ten minutes changing.”

He ran up the stairs, and before going to his room put his head in at the door of his sister’s.

“You there, Kate?  You didn’t get my telegram, then?  Come to my room in ten minutes, will you?  I want to see you particularly before dinner.”

With a seaman’s quickness he was bathed and dressed within the time he had named.

“Come in,” he said, as his sister tapped.  “You’ve got a pretty cool head, Sis; look at this, quickly.”

He handed her the evening paper, pointing out the fateful paragraph.  Kate went a little pale as she read it; her bosom heaved, but she said nothing.