"It is a game," added Bramsdean. "Loading that crowd of Huns on to us is like a man in a mile race chucking his gear to another competitor and telling him to hang on. I don’t wish the blighter any harm, but I do hope that if he pulls off the money prize they’ll pay him in German marks at the pre-war rate of exchange. That’d make him look blue!" Although no news came in concerning their Hun rival, the officers and crew of the "Golden Hind" began to be bombarded with wireless messages from Britons in every quarter of the globe. All were of the most encouraging nature, for the story of Fosterdyke’s airship and her adventures and misadventures--all more or less distorted owing to the lack of authentic detail--had awakened world-wide interest. There were cheery messages from patriotic Britons; incentive ones from sportsmen, to whom the suggestion of a race appealed more than did the fact that the contest was one of endurance calculated to uphold the prestige of British flying men. Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Norwegians, Americans, and Japanese all sent greetings to the intrepid British airmen. "Didn’t know we had so many friends," remarked Fosterdyke. "Sportsmanlike of those Americans and Japs, too, when they have representatives in the show." The "Golden Hind" was now approaching the regular mail line, where routes to and from the Cape and round the Horn unite in the neighbourhood of Las Palmas. "We’ll signal the first vessel we sight," decided Sir Reginald, "and get her to relieve us of our cargo of Fritzes. The sooner the better, because several of the ballonets are showing distinct symptoms of porosity." Five minutes later the airship had slowed down and had swung round on a course parallel to a homeward-bound Dutchman. The skipper of the latter, when appealed to by megaphone, stoutly refused to receive the seventeen Germans. He gave no reason why he should not do so, and without waiting for further parley rang for full speed ahead. A little later a French auxiliary barque was sighted, bound south. Fosterdyke made no attempt to intercept her. "There are limits," he observed. "Dumping those Huns on board an outward-bound Frenchman is one of them. Now for the next vessel. Three for luck." The third was a British tramp, bound from Montevideo for Naples. Her "Old Man," although ignorant that a Round-the-World aerial race was in progress or even in contemplation, readily agreed to help the "Golden Hind" on her way. "I’ll find use for ’em," he added with infinite relish. "They’ll work their passage, never you fear. Three times I’ve been torpedoed without warning, and on two occasions Fritz popped up to jeer at us struggling in waterlogged boats."