Chapter 22

ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Mr. Griggs, the American consul at Aden, proved an affable, pleasant entertainer. His little wife was also very genial and painstaking for their comforts, declaring at their protests that she was doing no more for them than she had done for the other flyers when they came through, a short time before. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl, and both of these plied the boys with innumerable questions about their journey, expressing the greatest interest and excitement when they worked out of Paul the story of the adventure with the gorilla and python.

After the meal, which was very appetizing and refreshing, they spent a short time preparing their reports to the _Daily Independent_, and then accompanied their host to the post-office, where the letter and roll of films were mailed. At the telegraph office they received a pleasant surprise in the shape of a message from Mr. Giddings, which stated their reports were coming in to the newspaper all right, and that the greatest interest was being manifested in them by the world in general and by New York people in particular.

"Whatever you do, don't let the other crew beat you," were his concluding words. "I have ordered the helium shipped to Nukahiva by fast steamer."

"That's good news," said John, with satisfaction, referring to the helium, and the others accorded with him.

They dispatched a telegram to Mr. Giddings, and then started out to buy some fruit and other foods. As they went along the narrow, crooking street upon which they had been walking they met so many Arabs with small sprays of dark-green leaves which they put in their mouths and chewed, that their curiosity was aroused, and Bob asked Mr. Griggs what the leaves were.

"Those are the leaves of the khat bush," was the response. "You must have passed numerous plantations of such bushes up on the hillsides as you flew over into the basin here. The Yemen Arabs like to chew the leaves so well that they have all of the passion for them that a toper has for whiskey, and they will spend their last rupee for a small bundle."

"Does this chewing of the leaves intoxicate them?" asked John.

"Oh, no; the leaves are quite harmless. But they do produce a strangely exhilarating effect upon those who chew them. If you ask a Yemen Arab what he chews the leaves for, he will invariably look at you with astonishment and tell you that he forgets all his troubles, sees the most beautiful of fairies and the richest rose-gardens of Allah, and lives in a new world."

"Do they go to the fields after it themselves?" inquired Tom.

"Not at all," said Mr. Griggs; "the khat is brought into town every morning about eleven o'clock by long caravans of camels which proceed from the khat farms along the mountain slopes. Long before these camels appear in the valley, with a bundle of khat swung on each side of the beasts, messengers on fleeter camels have brought the tidings of approach. From the shelters of the shops, so silent except just now, cheerful cries break out; the streets are filled with Arabs who sing joyfully; tikka gharries rattle madly by, whips waving and turbans awry; there are flashes of color from rich men's gowns and the sounds of their clicking oryx-hide sandals as they rapidly strike the stony pavements; there is a continual blunt clatter from the tom-toms in the hands of long-gowned fellows. They are all going to the market where the khat will soon arrive, each one anxious to have first choice and get the best bargain. There they will bicker with the khat traders for an hour sometimes, then in will come the despised hadjis, the venders of firewood, who will buy up for a few pice the scraps which remain."

This was all very interesting to the flyers, but it was high time to hurry back and resume their flight; so, restraining their impulse to ask more questions or investigate the attractions of the town, they bought their supplies, and returned with the American minister to the landing-field.

Ten minutes later the Sky-Bird was mounting easily up into the sky, viewed by hundreds of shouting Arabs. It was good-bye to Persia now.

Looking at his watch, Paul, at the throttle, saw that it was nine-fifty. They were leaving Aden only fifty minutes behind schedule. That was not at all bad; but it was not pleasant to think that their rivals were still ahead of them. And two hours was a pretty stiff lead.

They were not long in passing over the hills to the south, and then headed eastward out over the elongated gulf. Looking back, John saw the sandhills by the sea glistening in the bright sunlight like mounds of gold-dust. Every leaf and stem in the scrub stood out in black and silver filigree; and euphorbias and adeniums, gouty and pompous above the lower growths, seemed like fantasies of gray on a Japanese screen covered with cerulean velvet. It was their last sight of Persia, and one not soon to be forgotten.

Our friends now settled down for a long hop, for they would have to fly all day and all night before reaching Colombo.

After a while they sighted Socotra, the little isle off the coast of Cape Guardafui, from whence comes most of the world's supply of frankincense; then leaving its rocky shores behind them they cut straight across the Persian Sea, braving whatever tropical storm might arise.

All that day they swept over the blue waters of this great body, frequently seeing ships below and sometimes small islands. Toward night they ran into such hard headwinds that Bob went up higher. He climbed steadily until the Sky-Bird had attained an altitude of nine thousand feet. Here, as expected, they found the winds much less forceful, but the sea was blotted out entirely by the clouds through which they had passed in the process of rising and which now lay between.

Indeed, these clouds resembled a billowy ocean of white foam in themselves, or a landscape covered with hills and valleys of snow. The rounded cloud contours could easily be likened to the domes of snow-covered mountains. It was really difficult to conceive that that amorphous expanse was not actually solid. Here and there flocculent towers and summits heaved up, piled like mighty snow dumps, toppling and crushing into one another, as the breezes stirred them.

Then there were tiny wisps of cloud, more delicate and frail than feathers or the down of a dandelion-blow. Chasms hundreds of feet deep, sheer columns, and banks, extended almost beyond eye-reach. Between the flyers and the sun stretched isolated towers of cumulus, cast up as if erupted by the chaos below. The sunlight, filtering through this or that gossamer bulk, was scattered into every conceivable shade and monotone. And around the margins of the heaving billows the sun's rays played unhampered, unrestricted, outlining all with edgings of the purest silver.

The scene was one of such extravagance that the brain was staggered with what the eye tried to register. Below the aviators, the shadow of their machine pursued them on white film like a grotesque gray bird of some supernatural region. The shadow followed tirelessly, gaining as the hour of noon approached, gaining still as afternoon began to gather, swell, and wane; and always it skipped from crest to crest down there just below, jumping gulfs like a bewitched phantom.

It was so cold at this height that the aviators had to put on their heaviest garments, and they were content to open the windows only a slight way for ventilation.

When darkness fell, they were still flying high, though at reduced speed, as John was afraid that a rate too much over schedule might cause them to overrun their destination before daylight could disclose its outlines to them. Every half-hour the pilot's helper checked up their position on the chart. Had this not been done from the very start of the trip, they never could have struck their ports with the accuracy they did, and disaster would have been the result, if not death to the crew.

As it was, they had taken every precaution they could. When they had crossed the Atlantic they had been careful to inflate the four spare inner tubes of their landing wheels, as these would make capital life-preservers in case the flyers were thrown into the sea; and one of the last things they did before leaving Aden was to see that the tubes were still inflated.

The long night passed with considerable anxiety on the part of Tom and John, but when dawn finally broke they felt like uttering a "hurrah," and called Paul and Bob up from their sleep to witness the cheering sight ahead of them.

At a distance of what must have been close to fifty miles, was a white patch in a haziness of green plain surrounded by hills and low mountains. The land itself was encircled by the sea, and when they saw a great peninsula spreading away to the northward, they knew that the island was Ceylon, and the other land the peninsula of Hindustan.

Somewhat off their course, they wheeled a little north. Soon details became apparent in the island. The white patch grew, developing into a considerable town--Colombo.

They swept up and around it, then settled, and climbed stiffly out of the Sky-Bird not twenty yards from another airplane, about which four men in flying-suits had been working. These fellows looked toward the new arrivals scowlingly.

But our flyers, overjoyed to think they had caught the _Clarion's_ crew, only smiled back indulgently.