“You boys go above,” he ordered. “You’re both reporters and you love the picturesque and dramatic. We’ll be over Newfoundland in a few minutes. Then it’ll be only two hundred and forty-one miles over the last land we’ll see till we reach the old sod of Ireland. I want you to see all you can—you may need the impressions in your newspaper stuff. I’ll run up when you sight Fogo Island.”
When Newfoundland’s dark pine forests, its lakes and rivers, its rocky wilds where yet the moose lives and multiplies, had filled the circle of the horizon beneath the birdlike aeroplane, it was eight o’clock. Just then the long obscured sun broke through the mist clouds. A brilliant orange and red sky suddenly darkened the lakes and woods beneath. Then the uninhabited world turned to a sunset glow as if the day had been born again.
“It’s the longest day in the year,” exclaimed Buck. “We’ll see Fogo!”
“Fogo Island, almost dead ahead to port.”
Bob and Buck were on the port gallery when Ned joined the excited pair.
“Gentlemen,” exclaimed Ned taking out his watch, “we shall lose five hours by the time we reach London. Since our next points of bearing will be reached under London time we may as well change our watches now as later. When we pass Fogo Island I suggest we move our time pieces ahead five hours.”
“Fogo Island and eight fifty-nine P. M.,” exclaimed Alan a few minutes later.
“Fogo Island and one fifty-one A. M.,” announced Ned laughing.
And as the hands of four watches flew to the new time, the flight over sea began.
Fogo Island, bleak, uninhabited and wave drenched, is now known for nothing except that it is the only island cut by the great circle or shortest course between New York and London. In time it will be known as the intermediate land station on the aerial route between these two great cities. It lies in 50° west longitude and 50° 40´ north latitude.
At one minute of two o’clock on the morning of June 22, by the altered watches, and eight o’clock and fifty-nine minutes by the unaltered chronometer, the _Ocean Flyer_ cleared this vague, rocky point and headed S. 79-1/2° E. at an elevation of 2,500 feet. For 146 miles the airship was to hold this course. It seemed strange to Buck to see the compass showing a course east by south which, in his judgment, presaged a landing in France.