The revolution of Monegasques demanding the vote seemed after all not to
be taking place that day; but if Vanno missed the miniature warlike
demonstration he had been promised, at least his walk was not
uneventful. Noticing a group round Carleton's hangar on the beach, he
drew nearer, and to his astonishment saw Mary in a long coat of
moleskin, and a little red motor-bonnet, surrounded by five men, one of
them the somewhat notorious Maharajah of Indorwana. Vanno retreated
hastily, and went on toward the steps which led up to the Rock of
Monaco; but he had not gone far when a combination of sounds stopped
him: the whirr of a propeller and the throb of an engine. Carleton was
evidently on the point of trying his machine, the curious invention
which could be used, it was said, on land as well as in air and on the
water.
Vanno looked back, and saw a biplane on wheels, fitted with a kind of
float. It was moving out of the hangar, down an inclined plane that
bridged the beach as far as the water's edge. In the aviator's seat sat
Dick, and behind him the red motor-bonnet was decorative as a flower.
She was going with Carleton! Vanno had hardly time to realize that he
had seen her, before the hydro-aeroplane ran, rather than plunged, into
the water. It ploughed deeply and almost painfully for the first moment,
sending up a great spout of foam like an immense plume of spun glass;
but as Carleton increased the speed daringly, his _Flying Fish_ rose
higher on the little waves, the float barely skimming the surface of the
water.
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