“You made quite a hit with his nobs,” remarked Billy to Henri when the party reached the street, and started for the Maritime station. “Wasn’t he fine, though!” exclaimed Henri.
“You’ll find that he has the say when it comes to moving about in France these times,” asserted the captain. “You’re a lucky lot, I tell you.”
“I think we owe you something for all this, captain,” suggested Billy.
“Oh, well,” replied the captain, “that’s all in the family, anyhow. There’s a certain old gentleman over in the States who never went back on me—and you are a down-to-date picture of him, Billy.”
Josh had given the engine end of the sea-plane[164] a thorough overhauling, refilled the tanks, and was ready, he claimed, to sail to the moon.
“Never saw such a hungry place as Calais is now,” he grumbled. “The old lady running the nearest bakery told me a little while ago that she never sold so much bread before in all her life, and the ovens couldn’t half keep up with the demand. I don’t believe, either, that there is a cupful of milk in the town.”
“You seem to have fallen down as a grub hunter, old man,” jested the captain. “But there is no use growling,” he added, “the machine lockers are pretty full yet.”
Indeed, there was no immediate danger of the airmen starving.
Henri was chiefly occupied, during the exchange between the captain and Josh, in thinking of the new care put upon him in the matter of the sealed packet, and if it was once, it was twenty times in the hour, that he clutched at his breast, where the parcel reposed. The carrying of jewels and gold around his waist he passed as an old experience. It was merely a habit, now.
But the mystery about the packet appealed to the boy, and imagination magnified the trust until it weighed about a ton on his mind.
The captain had not yet revealed his program of action, and it was with great difficulty that[165] Henri restrained his growing impatience at the delay.
After a hearty attack on the food supply of the sea-plane, the captain, behind a pipeful of the stoutest tobacco to be found on the continent, announced that there would be no flying that night. The skipper of a fishing smack had just brought in the rumor from Dover that several bombs had been dropped from hostile a?roplanes upon that famous fortified naval harbor. The skipper had also heard that the damage inflicted by the bombs was light. The captain, under the circumstances, could not well afford to take chances with a costly machine that did not belong to him, by night flight. With such rumors on the wireless flashing down the coast, there was no telling what might happen to an aviator who could not show his colors.
From this it may be surmised that the captain had no instructions to put the boys on the night express from Calais to Paris.
“Say, captain, how long do we have to stay here?”
Henri had set to angling for information.
“Overnight, anyhow,” briefly replied the captain. The truth of the matter is, he was secretly enjoying this bit of teasing, and, further, he was himself in doubt until a certain messenger should arrive with a wired for perm............