The small boat was then withdrawn from the beach and Tom and the two giants got into the hull of the plane. The airtight boat was coupled to the end of the wing again and they prepared for flight. If the police of the fishing port expected to see the huge machine jump over the oil tanks and land on the beach, they were mistaken. When she took to the air, Tom swerved her in a half circle and she shot out over the sea again and soared into the darkening sky at railroad speed! A sprinkle of brilliant stars had now appeared. The dome of the sky was like a deep blue velvet robe, all trimmed with sparkling sequins. On the horizon flashes of purple, scarlet, and green denoted the distant Aurora Borealis. It was a perfect Arctic night. Tom sailed his flying boat not far above the water and ice. Vast sheets of the latter gleamed below the flying boat and they could trace long canals between the fields. Here and there rose the peak of a great berg. “When you consider that only about one-seventh of the bulk of a berg is above the surface of the water, some of those fellows must be extraordinary in size,” Tom said to Ned and Kingston. “Some icebergs, I’ll say!” murmured the wireless operator. “And there are thousands of them. How are you ever going to pick up the one those folks were wrecked on?” But Tom had already thought seriously of that point. The chart and Captain Karofsen agreed that the set of the current was southward between Greenland and Iceland, through the wide Denmark Strait. “In all probability that berg our friends are on has been carried into the strait by this time,” Tom declared. “You seem dreadfully certain that the poor chaps are still alive,” Ned said. “Captain Karofsen has hope of that, so why not?” rejoined Tom. “We have not come away over here to find Mr. Damon and Mary’s father starved or frozen, I hope.” But Tom was anxious. He would not leave his post in the pilot room that night. As the darkness increased the two great searchlights of the seaplane flashed their beams over the icefields, and it did seem as though, if there were any castaways there, these signals would be answered. The castaways from the _Kalrye_ were known to have electric torches. Until the thin edge of the sun appeared above the horizon again the _Winged Arrow_ soared over the sea. Captain Karofsen pointed out the coast of Greenland, which the boys at first had thought was a row of icebergs in the distance. “My _Kalrye_, she vos sailing by there when she vos wrecked,” said the schooner captain. “We make it in about two days more. Undt she iss lost!”