"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 sc.r.a.ps 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 pa.s.sing 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 j.a.panese 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 sh.o.r.es 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 alt.i.tude 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.u.mulus, 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 pa.s.sed 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.

CHAPTER XXIII

BOMBED BY ROCKS

Our friends had landed in the lowlands just to the north of Colombo, whose scattered buildings contained upwards of a hundred thousand inhabitants, most of whom were native Singhalese, descendants of the colonists who came from the valley of the Ganges and settled the island five hundred years before the birth of Christ. To the southward arose the rocky headlands of the coast, and to the westward could be seen the somber peak of Pedrotallagalla, the highest mountain of the island.

Numerous ships, some very crude and with queer sails, were in the harbor as the boys landed, and scores of natives in short skirts were loading and unloading these. Undoubtedly the huge square boxes which some of them carried aboard so easily upon their heads contained tea, for which Ceylon is famous.

The person in charge of the landing-field here was a Mr. Young, an American clergyman connected with the local Baptist mission. This tall gentleman came forward, accompanied by the British governor of the island, within a few moments after the flyers struck the ground. In fact, they were still stretching their cramped legs and arms when he greeted them and introduced the governor, Sir Henry Hurst.

"Young men, I am more than delighted to shake hands with you," said the governor. "It looks as if you and the other crew over yonder were upon an epoch-making tour, for you are not ten minutes behind your schedule, as we have it in the London papers and also in our own Colombian newspaper. My only regret is that you do not represent England instead of America." He laughed good-naturedly as he made the last remark.

"It was quite a task for the governor and myself to get up at this early hour to receive you, but the occasion is well worth the effort,"

observed Mr. Young, smiling. "Here we usually sleep very late, often as late as nine o'clock. Even the Singhalese and Burghers are not yet generally up from their beds, though those who work at the wharves have appeared. If you had arrived a few hours later there would be thousands of the population here to see you."

"We are well satisfied with the hour, then," said John. "The fewer natives we have around the Sky-Bird, the better we like it, both for working and taking off. How long has that other crew been in, sir?"

"Not more than a half-hour. They are taking on their fuel now, being a.s.sisted by a couple of Burghers. They advised us that they would probably remain here until noon, being tired from their long flight from Aden. I don't know; why, but the slender man with the dark skin and mustache particularly requested me to see that you knew this intention of theirs."

The flyers thought this was rather strange. Why should the _Clarion's_ crew remain so long in Colombo, when their interests in the race demanded as much time put into flying as possible? It was still more incomprehensible what object they would have in wishing the Sky-Bird's flyers to understand this intention, as by so doing our boys could make their plans to gain a heavy lead.

It was too much of a puzzle for them to work out, so Bob and Paul, aided by two Burghers (naturalized Europeans), went to work overhauling the machine and storing fuel, while John and Tom made their way into town with Sir Henry Hurst to transact their business. When they returned they found the two younger members of their crew in a heated discussion with the _Clarion_ fellows.

"What's the matter here, anyhow?" demanded John, as he and Tom pushed their way through the little ring of natives who had gathered about the princ.i.p.als.

"It's just this way," said Pete Deveaux, with a grin meant to be very cool and indifferent, although his eyes roved uneasily; "We fellows were working on our machine here, minding our own business, when these two kids of yours came up and demanded to know why we had played you dirty at Freetown and Kuka. They accused us of purposely carrying off your share of fuel at Freetown, and of stirring up the natives at Kuka so you couldn't make a safe landing."

"We simply couldn't stand keeping quiet any longer, John," put in Paul very heatedly. "We thought it a good time to have it out with these fellows for their crookedness."

"That's right; they're a bunch of snakes!" supported Bob, his cheeks red with excitement and anger, and his fists doubled menacingly.

John turned to the slouching figures of the rival crew. "Do you fellows deny these charges?" he asked quietly.

Crossman, Torrey, and Lane looked at their leader, merely shrugging their shoulders. Pete Deveaux took a quick glance in their direction, in turn. Then his face clouded a little darker, and he blurted out to his men: "You confounded babies, why don't you deny it? You know we didn't do anything on purpose to hold these guys back!"

"That's right; we sure didn't," said Sam Lane.

"Of course not," added Chuck Crossman.

"Wouldn't think of it," interjected Oliver Torrey.

Our boys were disgusted by the cringing att.i.tude of Pete Deveaux's cronies. Two of them were larger than the Frenchman, yet they seemed to be afraid of him. John saw that nothing was to be gained at this time by continuing the argument, so he pulled his comrades away with this parting and significant warning to their rivals: "Well, Deveaux, we'll let this drop now; but we certainly hope that you will take pains to see that nothing more of so strongly a suspicious character occurs on this trip!"

Pete Deveaux snarled back some answer which they could not make out.

Our friends returned to the Sky-Bird. In a few minutes Bob, who had climbed on top of the fuselage to test the helium valves, came down and said: "Something new is going on over in our neighbor's yard, fellows.

When I was up there I could see right over the natives' heads, and I noticed Chuck Crossman and Pete Deveaux hunting around the field till they found half-a-dozen rocks as big as a football, and they put these in the cabin of the _Clarion_. Wonder what on earth they intend to do with those?"

"It's too hard a nut for me to crack," answered John.