Chapter FIVE

Five hundred miles from San Francisco, high over the vast expanse of the trackless Pacific Ocean, the airship Wilbur Wright was tearing through space. All of her six engines were running smoothly and sweetly, each turning out the power of two thousand horses, sending the huge airship forward at an average speed of one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

In the navigating cabin, built into the keel and streamlined to the forward end of the envelope, Captain Johnstone and his officers were engaged in “shooting the sun” for latitude. On the forward lookout post, atop the envelope 90 feet higher up, stood Howard Redmond, the second officer, sextant glued to his eye, engaged in the same task.

The passengers were spread about the ship, some taking their morning walk along the 1,000 foot promenade deck built on top of the envelope. Some were in the smoking-room playing cards, or getting up a pool on the day’s run. Others were in the observation saloon, lying recumbent in comfortable lounging chairs.

Upon the after end of the promenade deck, seated in long deck chairs were Commander Fitzgerald and Mary Ingleton. They had gone there immediately after breakfast, which was served two hours after the airship had left San Francisco. Mrs. Ingleton was still in her cabin below. For some time the naval officer and his companion sat watching for a glimpse of the placid ocean through the occasional rifts which split the rolling clouds below the airship. The clouds themselves presented a remarkable sight as the brilliant sun played upon their rounded billows and gave them the appearance of gigantic puffs of snow-white cotton. Beneath these fleecy billows a tropical rain-storm was in progress, but in the sea of air through which the Wilbur Wright was speeding all was calm and serene, with not a single speck of cloud above to mar the perfect contour of the sky-blue vaulted heavens.

Neither Fitzgerald nor his companion had spoken since they sat down. Mary was in raptures over the scene unfolded below her. Fitzgerald was plainly nervous. His unusually steady hands were shaking perceptibly, and he was constantly shifting uneasily in his chair. This became so noticeable at last that Mary turned to him and asked:

“Don’t you feel well, Commander?”

“Why do you ask that?” parried Fitzgerald.

Mary paused a moment and then replied:

“Well from your manner you don’t appear well. In fact you look quite worried.”

“I’ve just been thinking about something,” answered Fitzgerald, “and trying to make up my mind what to do.”

“Oh! do tell me,” exclaimed Mary, “maybe I can help you.”

Fitzgerald suddenly sat up in his chair with an eager look in his eyes. Mary’s remark had brought more animation to his face than he had exhibited at any time since they had boarded the airship.

“You can help me, Miss Ingleton,” he said eagerly; then after a moment’s reflection, he continued in a more dejected tone, “but I don’t know whether you would be willing to.”

“How strange you are, Commander. What makes you think that I wouldn’t help you if I could?”

“Well I know you could help me in this case, but it is something of such vital importance that I hesitate to ask you for fear you would refuse.”

Mary looked up at him, and in a short quick glance her intuition divined the cause of Fitzgerald’s agitation and his cryptic remarks. She quickly lowered her eyes as a warm blush suffused her cheeks. Then with true womanly instinct she promptly attempted to change the embarrassing subject by exclaiming:

“Oh! look Commander, there’s a break in the clouds. You can see the ocean now. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes it is,” replied Fitzgerald, “but to me it isn’t nearly as wonderful as you are--Mary!”

He lingered longingly over her name, the first time he had used it in her presence. Again Mary blushed, and then in her confusion she said in whispering tones:

“Don’t, please don’t, or I will have to leave you.”

“You can’t,” exclaimed Fitzgerald, as he suddenly leaned over and grasped her hands. Then before she could make any move he continued in impassioned tones, “No! you can’t leave me until you have heard what is in my heart Mary. I love you Mary! I love you with all my soul. I have tried hard to tell you Mary, but I could never gather up sufficient courage. It is hard for me to tell you now. I am just a plain man. I am not gifted with speech, but even if I were there are no words in any language that could describe my feelings toward you, Mary. I have loved you since the first time I saw you, with a love that has grown from day to day. You are more than all the world to me. I want to be with you always. I watch for you every moment, Mary. I am unhappy and lonesome when you are not with me. Mary, won’t you be my wife?”

The unusual fervor that gripped Fitzgerald and spurred him to unwonted eloquence kept him keyed up while he waited anxiously and impatiently for Mary to reply. He devoured her with his eyes, as with downcast head, she nervously twisted her hands within her lap. Thus she sat for several minutes trying hard to find a way to deal with the new and unexpected situation. She had never dreamed that Fitzgerald was in love with her. The excitement of the voyage, and the constant retrospection upon the incident with Levanter had kept her in a state of oblivion to the persons about her. In a way she had acted toward them as though they were necessary parts of her surroundings, and she had not given them a moment’s thought, nor paid any attention to their whims or moods. Therefore the proposal of Fitzgerald came to her like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. She was completely non-plussed by it and at a loss as to what to say.

She knew she did not love him. In fact so far as her feelings were concerned she had in an abstract way looked upon him as one commanding her filial respect. The thought as a possible lover had certainly never entered her head. As she mused, Fitzgerald’s impatience gained mastery over him, and Mary was suddenly awakened from the reverie his proposal had plunged her into, by his exclamation:

“Mary dear, can’t you say something.”

“Really I don’t know,” she blurted out, “I don’t know what to say. It would be silly to say it was so unexpected, but honestly you took me by surprise. I have never thought of you as a lover, Commander, really I haven’t, so I cannot give you an answer unless it be, ‘No.’”

“No, don’t say that,” pleaded Fitzgerald, “don’t say that! I am willing to wait. I do love you, Mary, and nothing that ever happens can change the feeling. I am yours only and always. I am willing to do anything you say dear, but can’t you give me some little encouragement?”

Mary suddenly assumed an air of dignity that seemed strange in one so young.

“Listen Commander,” she said, “haven’t you wondered why I am making this trip at this time of the year? I will tell you.”

She then told the story of her experience with Levanter, leaving out no detail of her own perturbation.

“So you see Commander,” she continued, “I am not yet myself. I don’t know just what to say to you. I want to say ‘No,’ but I like you very much. As matters stand now I can’t give you any encouragement, it would not be right. Let us be friends, but please, please do not ask me again.”

“Very well, Mary,” said Fitzgerald, “I will wait gladly under those circumstances. Maybe you will change your liking into love. I will certainly do all I can to bring that about. I hope so with all my heart. I will obey your command, for this voyage anyway, but I am going to ask you again dear, when I think the time has arrived.”

While this scene was being enacted unobserved upon the after end of the ship, another incident was occurring in another part of the ship. In the wireless cabin just abaft the navigating room, Herbert Alexander, the wireless operator, sat with his legs upon the instrument table, the receivers fastened to his ears, and a novel in his hands. He read as he listened for stray calls and smoked with ease, at peace with all the world, dreaming between paragraphs of the Geisha girl in Yokohama waiting to entertain him at the end of the flight.

Presently, with a bored expression on his face, he dropped the book and leisurely withdrew his legs from the table. His sensitive ears had responded to the call, WWR. WWR. WWR., of his ship. The calling station signed San Francisco.

With a patience born of experience he waited until the operator at San Francisco finished, then grasping the sending key, he answered the call and gave the signal to go ahead. Taking one of the telegraph blanks he wrote down:

“Be on your guard. Air pirate again operating.” This was followed by a brief description of the attack on the Langley.

The news of the threatening danger spread like wildfire among the passengers. Their moods immediately changed. Upon their countenances appeared the shadows of deep thought, the furrows of deep anxiety and fear. All grew quiet and expectant.

In a corner of the salon, apart from the rest stood Wing Commander Kenneth Fitzgerald, with Mrs. Ingleton and Mary. Mrs. Ingleton was very perturbed, but not so Mary. She was obviously pleased with the situation, for she evinced a greater interest in it than she had shown for months.

“Just think,” she said joyously to Fitzgerald, “that we might get an honest to goodness adventure. Isn’t it thrilling? The girls in Washington will be terribly envious when they read about it. Oh! I do hope the old pirate shows up. I’ll be terribly disappointed if he doesn’t. Isn’t it terribly exciting?”