right now is the heat of his rockets. But he can throw most
of that out with the gases. Lord, that's some machine! But eventually
his rockets will give out, and down he will come, so we'll just hang
here beneath him and--whoa--not so fast--he isn't going to stay there,
it seems; he is angling his ship off a bit, and shooting along, so that,
besides, holding himself up, he is making a little forward progress.
We'll have to follow! He's going to do some speeding, it seems! Well, we
can keep up with him, at our level."

"Dick, no plane ever made before would have stood the terrific pulls and
yanks that his plane got. He was steering and twisting on the standard
type air rudders, and what strains he had! The unique type of plane must
be extremely strong. I never saw one shaped like his before, though--it
is the obvious shape at that! It was just a huge triangular arrowhead!
Did you ever see one like it?"

"Something like it, yes, and so have you. Don't you recognize that as
the development of the old paper gliders you used to throw around as a
kid? It has the same shape, the triangular wings with the point in the
lead, except that he undoubtedly had a slight curve to the wings to
increase the efficiency. Something like the flying wings of fifty years
ago. I hope that man is only a kleptomaniac, because he can be cured of
that, and I may then have a new laboratory partner. He has some
exceedingly intelligent ideas!

"He's an ingenious man, but I wish he didn't store quite so much fuel
in his rocket tubes! It's unbearably cold in here, and I can't sacrifice
any power just for comfort. The rocket ship up there seems to be getting
more and more acceleration in the level. He has me dropping steadily to
get air to run the generator. He is going fast enough!"

They followed beneath the pirate, faster and faster as the rockets of
the ship began to push it forward more and more.

"Dick, why is it he didn't use all his rockets at first instead of
gradually increasing the power this way?"

"If you were operating the ship, Morey, you'd understand. Look at the
speedometer a moment and see if you can figure it out."

"Hmmm--4.5 miles per second--buzzing right along--but I don't see what
that--good Lord! We never will get him at this rate! How do you expect
to get him?"

"I have no idea--yet. But you missed the important point. He is going
4.5 miles a second. When he reaches 5 miles a second he will never come
down from his hundr