chines—biplanes with long, lozenge-like pendants below them. Bombers, they were—the seaplanes bearing Bane's ton bombs of TNT. Their appearance caused only slight shift of our course; their timing was almost perfect for their appointment. Undoubtedly they talked, back and forth by radio, with our flag-ship; and after they joined us, our speed decreased to theirs. They flew lowest, perhaps two thousand feet above the sea.
On the ocean lay a sharp elliptical seed. The white wash of a wake declared that it moved but its advance was so slow in comparison to ours that it seemed simply to lie on the sea and swell as we flew at it.
Toward it we leaped at three levels, the four bombing biplanes lowest; above them, the squadron of six; then, we. Swiftly, in the magic manner of objects approached by airplane, the seed expanded and lengthened and stood out of the water until it became a ship. A minute more, and it was no mere ship. Longer and wider and higher out of the ocean it grew until it became, beyond doubt, the Wotan on her maiden voyage, the greatest vessel on the seas!
