CHAPTER XXIV

NIGHT

At his swift touch, the plane reared upward and away from the danger that was rolling and heaving directly beneath. Peering out of the window at his left, Hal saw in the waters a procession of monsters. In the dusky haze of the twilight, a great school of whales were disporting themselves in hugely fantastic leaps and lunges. When a sixty-foot whale would leap high in the air, then drop its tons of weight back down against the waters, it seemed that creation shook to the concussion. At the thunder of huge bodies smashing back through the waves in their enormous fantasies of playfulness, Hal sent his ship rising higher into the air. If one of those monster bodies even brushed his wing or rudder, it would mean his plane crushed into helplessness, himself adrift upon the ocean.

With the approach of darkness, Hal Dane's spirit seemed to reach its zero hour of loneliness and weariness. Since the dawn of day he had matched his strength in battle after battle with the varying phases of the elements. He and his frail wind craft, mere contraption of cloth and wood and some lengths of steel tubing, had come out victorious so far--but there was still the night ahead of him.

He realized with a start that he had not tasted food for more than twelve hours. Even now, he felt no hunger; the long strain of matching human wits and power against the winds had taken away his appetite. However, he required himself to eat a sandwich and drink some hot coffee from his bottle. This would help him keep up his strength. He needed that help for strength. The darkness he was entering was a worse monster than those vast thrashing whale bodies he had just escaped.

Loneliness entered the lists against him also. As far as he could see over all the great ocean stretches, there showed no tiny pin point of light that could be a great transoceanic steamer cruising onward with its vast burden of human lives. If anything happened to him out here in the night, he was all alone, no vessel near to come to his assistance, no help outside of himself. If he died, he died alone--a mere atom dropped down in the ocean depths.

With an effort, Hal forced his mind away from morbid thoughts. He concentrated on his maps and instruments. Already, he had come over two thousand miles. With every whir of his motor he was ticking off more miles. A great longing rose in him to ride the high air currents once again, that would mean real speed. But he dared not risk his plane another time in the icy grip of the stratosphere. He had wracked the engine enough already. Another such battle with the ice sheath and with over-speed might tear the motor bodily from the machine.

To add to the loneliness of the night, he now swept into a stratum of fog. It hung in an enveloping mass about the ship, creeping into the cockpit, clouding the instruments. As Hal rode high to avoid the fog, he swept into an area of black clouds, snow clouds. At this altitude, he found the air filled with hail. In a moment these heavy, dangerous ice pellets were rattling angrily against the plane. Like a hunted creature, Hal shot this way and that striving to dodge the zone of ice and sleet. It was no use; the ice pall pursued him, sheeted his ship. Wing surfaces were flung out of balance with additional weight, controls began to clog. There was nothing to do for it save drop back down into the warm, foggy layers of air just above the waves. As soon as he hit the warm zone, ice began to melt, its heavy, retarding weight slid off. The speed of the ship, which had lagged below eighty miles the hour, now began to zoom back up well over the hundred mark.

His instruments would hold him to his course, and the noctovistor installed on his plane would catch the red glow of any ship's light, even through the fog, and warn him of its presence. But unlighted derelict ships adrift on the sea, and floating ice peaks were dangers that the red eye of the noctovistor could not record. His luck, alone, could carry him past such of these that happened in his path.

Later in the night, a glow on his noctovistor told him that a ship lay ahead. Hal sped sufficiently out of his course to avoid any danger of collision. Out through the air, though, he began flinging radio messages, and soon picked up a reply. From this ocean liner he got confirmation of his exact location, and the time. Brief enough messages they were, but Hal Dane blessed the wonderful science whose marvels had put him in touch with other humans out here in the lonely stretches of the great ocean. He zoomed on into the night with his heart cheered by this brief contact.

He now winged his way out of fog and cloud into the white light of the late rising moon. Now and then in this silver glow, mirages swam into his view. Peaks, foothills, ravines and rivers were etched so boldly in the sky that they seemed almost real. Fantastic hills and valleys would crumble away, and others equally fantastic would rise to take their place.

Then dawn began to break. Streaks of light crept up behind him out of the western sky. Below him, land appeared, islands dotting the ocean in a long crescent dipping northwest. Land--was it real, or merely another mirage? He flew lower. It was, yes, it must be real. There were houses, men like tiny dots, and a fleet of fishing craft that seemed mere toys, was setting out to sea.

It was the far-flung land chain of the Aleutian Islands that he was crossing. With a queer thrill in his heart, Hal Dane looked down over the side of his ship. Below him was real earth. He could land here if he wanted to, be in the midst of people. Right here he could end the long loneliness--if he wanted to.

Resolutely, Hal kept his plane headed forward. According to his charts he must turn slightly to the south now for the last south-western curve on his crescent-shaped route.

The longest stretch of ocean flight was over now; he felt that he had conquered the worst. In less than twenty-four hours he had come over three thousand miles--nearly three thousand, five hundred, in fact. At this rate he ought to sight the island kingdom of Japan in the afternoon of this day.

But in his reckoning, Hal had not taken into account the treacherous weather of the northern reaches of the Pacific. Instead of making good speed on this last lap of his journey, he began to lose time, to drop behind on his carefully worked out schedule.

From now on, he swept along in a continuous storm area. Gales seemed to roar up from nowhere and burst about the plane. From his student weather studies, that now seemed part of a long-gone past, Hal Dane had learned much about the thunderheads and twisters of the atmosphere. He knew a deal about gauging the breadth and diameter of certain type storms, their speed of movement, the velocity of the winds within these storms. Every shred of such knowledge that he had was put to severe test now. In his plane, he was like some hunted wild animal fleeing before the storm hounds, turning, twisting, riding now high, now low. Time and again he was only able to avoid a crash by feeling his way around the edges of the storms and dodging between them, never letting his plane become completely swallowed up in the maw of the storm monster. Sometimes two or three storms came together. A low-powered airplane would have been lost for lack of force to make headway in such a case, but the mighty Wind Bird courageously battled forward on these constantly changing air currents.

Then the clouds shredded away, and the glow of the evening sun lit the sky.

Hal Dane relaxed in his seat. He had fought a long fight, had lost all reckoning of time, space, of ocean distances. He had flown far enough to be near land--of that he was sure.

Soon he had confirmation of his hopes. His plane swooped into the midst of a flock of sea gulls. These winged fishers of the air often flew hundreds of miles from shore--but the sight of them usually meant that shore was somewhere in the distance.

Right enough Hal was in his deductions. Soon after he had passed through the gull fleet, he glimpsed tiny dots dipping on the waves below him. He flew lower. It was as he had hoped, these dots were men out in their fishing boats. Soon a shore line came into view.

When the Viking of the Sky swooped low over this land, however, the thrill in his heart changed to dire foreboding. He had come far enough to land in Japan--but this was not Japan, land of the flowery kingdom. Those squat fishermen below wore primitive, furred garments. Instead of pagodas and quaint paper-walled dwellings of the Japanese, here crouched a squalid village of round-roofed mud huts.

Storms had sent him far out of his course. Instead of Japan, this was Kamchatka that he floated above. Away to the south of him lay the Tokio of his destination.

In the face of a terrible weariness that was creeping over him, Hal Dane turned the nose of his craft to the south. He had already spent one night out over the ocean, and now another night was darkening his sky.