"But how am I to return to Gibraltar?" asked Jaures. "That’s your affair," replied Fosterdyke, sternly. "You ought to be thankful you’re still alive. Now go." At the first sign of dawn the Australian farmer, true to his word, arrived with a large motor-lorry piled with filled petrol cans. He was not alone. The seemingly sparsely-populated district now teemed with people. Hundreds must have seen the "Golden Hind" pass overhead the previous evening, but how they discovered the airship’s temporary anchorage was a mystery. There were townsmen in motorcars, sturdy farmers on motor-cycles, waggons, and carts, backwoodsmen on bicycles and on foot. Even the "sun-downer" class were represented. The "Golden Hind" had just completed her preparations for flying back to Fremantle aerodrome when a motor-cyclist rode up and handed Fosterdyke a telegram. "It was fortunate we didn’t make Fremantle last night," observed the baronet, handing the message to Kenyon and Bramsdean. "The aerodrome was destroyed by fire at one o’clock this morning." CHAPTER XVI--THE OBSERVATION BASKET While the "Golden Hind" was struggling towards the shores of Western Australia, Count Karl von Sinzig in Z64 was flying almost due south from Samarang, in the island of Java. He, too, had had a taste of the cyclone, which had extended over the whole of the Arabian Sea and had been severely felt as far north as the Persian-Turkestan frontier. Practically helpless in the grip of the furious blast, Z64 had been driven far off her course. Passing high over the mountainous districts of Thibet, the German airship, unseen and unheard, finally encountered a stiff northerly wind when approaching the China Sea in the neighbourhood of Hanoi. Already the start von Sinzig had obtained over his British rival was wiped out. The long detour he had been obliged to take represented twelve hours’ flight under normal conditions, and since he knew of Fosterdyke’s progress by the expedient of picking up the "Golden Hind’s" wireless message, he realised that the latter had made good her belated departure. At Samarang, Z64 took in fresh hydrogen and petrol. Von Sinzig reported his arrival to the representatives of the International Air Board, and stated his intention of proceeding via New Guinea, New Caledonia, and Norfolk Island to New Zealand, where he would be able to fulfil one of the conditions that required the competitors to touch at a spot within one degree of the nadir to their starting-point. But von Sinzig had no intention of carrying out his declared programme. Directly he was well clear of Samarang, he shaped a course due south in order to pick up the prevailing westerly wind south of Australia on which Fosterdyke counted also. A stiff northerly wind over the Sunda Sea helped the German to attain his object, and on the evening that the "Golden Hind" drifted to south of Fremantle, Z64 was skirting the coast of West Australia, in the neighbourhood of Geographe Bay.