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The craft was volplaning down as it ought, and Tom had it under as perfect control as was possible under the circumstances. "We'll get down all right if something else doesn't happen," he said to Jackson, with grim humor. "Well, let's hope that it won't," said the mechanic. "We're a good distance up yet."
Anon the ravens were joined by a third, volplaning from some cloud-covered peak, where he must have been watching all the time; and the crow was joined by four accomplices, who just drifted up from nowhere special, as gray crows have a habit of doing when there is carrion afoot.
"When I go away pulling," said the First Lieutenant, apparently addressing a watchful-eyed gull volplaning past with outstretched wings, "when I go away pulling, I like to get straight into the boat, shove off and start right in. It's this hanging about " "It's Tweedledee's fault," protested the coxswain bitterly. "I wrote it down last night on the slate.
Forward, in amidships, the band was playing a slow waltz and fifty or so couples from among the ship's company were solemnly revolving to the music with expressions of melancholy enjoyment peculiar to such exercise. "It's make-and-mend this afternoon," said the Senior Midshipman, tilting his cap over his eyes and lazily watching the antics of a gull volplaning against the light wind.
The instant he lost control of the motor, he seized the warping levers, and began manipulating them. At the same time he set the rudder so as to bring the Silver Cobweb to earth in a series of long spirals. The maneuver was that of volplaning, and has been performed successfully by several aviators whose engines have suddenly ceased to work while in mid-air. The young officer watched approvingly.
This very action of the skipper is utilized by the aviator in volplaning, that is, where the power of the engine is cut off, either by accident, or designedly, and the machine descends to the earth, whether in a long straight glide, or in a great circle.
"It's a good six or seven hundred miles wide, and we already know how deep it is. I don't think we want to risk trying to cross it again and running out of fuel en route! Volplaning down to the village is quite a different proposition from a straight-away flight across!" She sat pensive a moment. "There must be some way around," said she at last.
By working the lever of the vertical rudder, he now brought the head, or bow, of the airship up sharply, and for a moment the downward plunge was arrested. The Abaris shot along parallel to the plane of the earth's surface. This operation, repeated until the ground is reached, is, as I have already explained, called volplaning. "Something is wrong," announced Mr.
"We'll come at 'em first from the south, and if they don't run straight, we'll have to circle round till they do. But I want to come within shooting distance of them hombres under the trees. See? So fly as low as yuh dare, when we come back." Bland threw on the motor, circled and came volplaning back. He did not complain; he left that for times when he was not flying.
"Oh, yes, we can play that game too. I'll do a little volplaning myself," and the young inventor shut off the power and coasted earthward, while Ned, who had picked up the forward craft, kept the searchlight playing on her. And now began a wonderful chase. The smugglers' craft, for such she proved later to be, did her best to dodge the Falcon.
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