But at present none of these things bothered the party much. Sudds and the professor slept as though they were in their beds at home. The old hunter could sleep anywhere, and awake instantly with all his faculties about him. And the scientist slept profoundly because his body was exhausted. Under the brilliant moon the _Snowbird_ swung along the air-way like a veritable bird. Jack increased the revolutions of the propellers a trifle and the ship responded like a spirited horse to the spur. She darted ahead at a ninety mile speed and Washington White emitted a mournful groan. "What's the matter with you now, Wash?" shouted Mark, for they all wore ear-tabs and had to shout to make one another hear. "Oh, lawsy-massy on us!" groaned Wash. "I'se got sech a misery, Massa Mark, I dunno but ma time has camed." "What time has come?" demanded Mark, without much sympathy. "It'll be time for you to hustle and get us something to eat before long." "For de goodness gracious Agnes' sake!" gasped the negro, "yo' suahly ain't a-gwine ter dribe me ter wo'k up in disher flyin' contraption? Dat would suah be cruelty ter animiles, boy--it suah would!" "We've got to eat, Wash," said Jack, chuckling, "and you are steward and cook of this craft." "Gollyation! did I ship fo' sech wo'k? I nebber knowed it. It does seem to me dat de consanguinity ob de 'casion done call fo' notting but de quietest kind o' verisimilitude. De qualmishness dat arises in de interiorness of ma diaphragm ev'ry time I circumnavigates erbout in disher flyin' ship makes me wanter express mahself in de mos' scatterin' kin' ob er way--I hopes you gits ma meanin' clear?" Jack was laughing so that he could not speak, but Mark managed to say: "You mean that the motion of the aeroplane gives you a feeling of _mal de mer_?" "Dat's wot I done said," Wash replied, seriously. "I nebber in ma life felt so mal-der-merry as I do at dis present onauspicious 'casion; an' if dat mal don't stop merryin' purty quick, I suah shall be--ugh!--sick ter ma stummick!" This wail fairly convulsed Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson; but they knew that if Wash paid more attention to his duties and thought less about his own situation he would be better off. Mark insisted on his going at once into the tiny, covered "galley," as the boys called it, hung amidships, in which were the means of heating water, making coffee, and cooking certain simple viands in their stores. Wash went to his duties grumblingly; but he was an ingenious and skillful cook and when he got to work he forgot his "feeling of mal-de-merry." It was now approaching midnight and the flying machine had been steadily traveling northward for some hours. Both Andy Sudds and the professor awoke and offered to relieve the boys in their work. But Mark had taken Jack's place in the controller's seat and neither he nor his chum felt that he wished to give over the guidance of the _Snowbird_ to anybody else.