Kitabı oku: «The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, In League with the Insurgents», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XXII.
IN AN AEROPLANE IN AN ELECTRIC STORM

The boys were for pressing on at once but the deliberate Ben Stubbs insisted on a stop being made to “overhaul ship,” as he put it, meaning to tend to the injuries they had all received from the hail of flying rocks driven like small shot by the blast. Had it not been for the prospector’s shouted warning to “lie flat” they would undoubtedly have fared worse. As it was a few cuts, that looked alarming but really didn’t amount to much, constituted the worst of their injuries.

Lighting his pipe Ben sat down by the battery-box and took what he called a “comft’ble smoke,” of palm-bark tobacco of his own manufacture, before he would stir a foot. After that he consented to press forward and, carrying the long stick brought for the purpose of reaching the chain, the little party started on the last stage of their journey. Grappling it with the long stick Frank brought the chain to the side on which they stood without the slightest difficulty.

“So that’s the cable you crossed on,” commented Ben, “an’ to think that it was hanging there all these two years and I never knowed it.”

“I wonder you never thought of making a bridge, Ben?” commented Harry.

“Wall, now,” drawled Ben sarcastically, “I might have done that, mightn’t I, ’ef I could have carried a big enough stick of timber down here.”

“I didn’t think of that,” replied the abashed Harry, while the other boys laughed.

“Ah, there’s a lot of things that younkers don’t think of,” responded Ben sagely; “now when I was aboard the old Dolphin, bound roun’ the Horn for China – ”

“Never mind that now, Ben,” broke in Frank impatiently, “let’s get back to camp. I’m simply dying for a good feed and a sight of the Golden Eagle.”

The mention of the aeroplane was an impetus to everybody – the boys because it meant getting back to La Merced and relieving the anxiety of the people there; Billy because with a reporter’s instinct he grew restless when kept out of touch with the world no matter what exciting adventures he might have passed through, and Ben Stubbs out of pardonable curiosity to see what he called a “full-rigged air-ship.”

One by one the adventurers swung across the chasm which had been so nearly the cause of their death in the tunnel, and when Ben Stubbs, who came last, handed the end of the chain to Frank, the leader of the party hung it upon the hook where it had rested so many years with a peculiar feeling that neither he nor any other man would ever use it again.

An hour later they emerged into the bright sunlight through the Rocking Stone gate as they had dubbed it. The boys made a careful examination of its hidden mechanism as they passed out, but the Toltec mechanics who had put the hidden springs that connected it with the quesal’s eye had done their work well, and the young adventurers were no wiser after their examination than they had been before it.

The Treasure Cliff camp was just as they had left it and it seemed curious to gaze on their familiar surroundings and find them unchanged after such a strenuous period of hardship and adventure as they had encountered. Without losing time they at once started down the mountain-side for the Golden Eagle camp. Here also, things were unchanged and the boys, after a careful scrutiny of their prize craft, announced her fit for a voyage at any time.

It was decided, after a hasty consultation, that they would start for La Merced that night as soon as it was dark. Ben Stubbs and Billy were to be left to guard the camp. Billy remarking:

“I’ll be glad to get a rest. If we are asleep when you come back, tell the maid to wake us.”

“And to think that a few nights ago I was a watching yer camp-fire and ringing the bell and – now – here I am!” remarked Ben wonderingly.

The afternoon was spent in examining the rubies and talking over experiences. Frank, too, drew a rough map of the mines, so that when it became feasible to return to and ransack them of the treasure the process would be simplified. While the boys employed themselves in this way, Ben Stubbs borrowed a rifle and strode off into the jungle. He returned shortly before dark with a young wild pig and several brace of wood pigeons. He prepared these with a skill that bespoke his long experience at shifting for himself and when he announced that supper was ready by pounding on the bottom of a saucepan with a spoon, the boys were ready to fall to and eat the meal of their lives.

They were just concluding the meal when there was a low, far off rumble – like that of an approaching thunder storm. It was deeper, however, and longer sustained.

“There’s a storm coming,” exclaimed Frank and Harry simultaneously.

Ben Stubbs gravely set down his coffee and shook his head.

“Worse’n that, I’m afraid. Sounds to me like the first symptoms of what the greasers call ‘terremoto.’”

“What’s that?” demanded Billy.

“Why, that’s an airthquake,” replied Ben, “and every once in a while when they do come, they raise par’ticlar dickens. Ef you two young fellers is thinking of making a trip in that thar sky-jammer of yours to-night, you’d better get a move on with your start,” he went on, addressing Frank and Harry, “fer when thar comes an airthquake thar comes an almighty big wind right on its heels.”

The boys exchanged looks of concern. It was most important – nay urgent – that they should get to La Merced that night, or at any rate by morning, and set their father’s mind at rest concerning their safety. A sudden wind storm would mean that the Golden Eagle would have to make such a struggle for life as she never had before.

“We’ll have to chance it,” decided Frank finally, “after all it must be some distance off and we must get to La Merced to-night. If we don’t, we may be delayed several days and in that event we won’t know what might happen. We don’t want mother in New York to hear that we are lost;” he added gravely. This consideration wiped out at once whatever hesitancy they might have felt.

The preparations for launching the Golden Eagle were simple. Judging that he could not improve on the “backing-up” method he had adopted the last time they sailed from the plateau camp, on the memorable occasion of Billy’s rescue, Frank adopted the same tactics with the result that they secured a perfect start, and shot into the darkness with the gracefulness and velocity of a homing pigeon.

It was pitchy dark and in the air there was a hot sulphurous feeling. Not a breath of wind stirred, and if one had lit a candle its flame would have gone straight up without a flicker. Before sunset a heavy bank of lurid-rimmed clouds had loomed up in the southwest.

“Something is coming,” said Frank as with one eye on the map and the other on the compass in the lighted binnacle, he steered the Golden Eagle steadily through the ominous blackness.

“Well, we’ve got to keep on now,” replied Harry, “we can’t turn back very well and make a landing on the plateau in such darkness as this.”

As he spoke a long tongue of livid blue lightning flickered across the sky to the north. It lit up every wire and stay on the Golden Eagle, as if she had been enveloped in the glow of a blue calcium light. In an instant the illumination died out and it grew as black as ever, or rather the darkness seemed all the more impenetrable to the navigators of the Golden Eagle, by reason of the brilliant illumination that had just shattered it.

As they tore along, the engine chugging steadily in a whining purr like the steady voice of a big dynamo, the flashes grew more and more frequent.

“Looks as if we are in for it,” remarked Frank.

At the same instant a few heavy drops of rain pattered down on the covering of the planes and then stopped as suddenly as they commenced.

“How far do you figure we are from La Merced, now?” asked Harry after a long silence in which the lightning had kept the aeroplane illuminated in an almost constant blaze of lambent flame.

“Not more than twenty miles,” returned Frank, “we must make it before this hits us or – ”

He did not mention the alternative. There was no need to. Both boys knew that anything more risky than handling an aeroplane in a gale of wind could not be imagined.

More and more frequent grew the lightning flashes and they were now accompanied by terrific peals of thunder, that seemed to shake every rib and stanchion of the aeroplane.

“It’s an electric storm and a bad one, too,” exclaimed Frank, as a hissing bolt of lightning tore across the sky as it seemed only a few feet from the laboring aeroplane and struck the earth with a terrific report. Save for the first few warm drops there had been no rain and both boys were inwardly thankful for this. They believed the Golden Eagle could force her way through a rain storm, but they did not want to try. For an aeroplane, rain is almost as unfavorable an element as wind.

So filled with electricity was the air that occasionally after a particularly vivid flash, the metal portions of the Golden Eagle were outlined in living fire. This added a new terror to the boys’ position.

What if the engine short-circuited?

Almost as the thought flashed across their minds the Golden Eagle seemed to become suddenly enveloped in a perfect sheet of fire. The boys could hear the hiss of the live electricity as it ran along her stay wires and stanchions. Blinded and half stunned, they realized as the glare crashed out that it must have short-circuited something.

With a great sigh of relief, however, Frank realized that the engine was still running sweet and true. He glanced at the binnacle.

Ah, that was it!

The dynamo had been short-circuited and they had no means of illuminating the compass. True they had matches, but it would be impossible to steer the Golden Eagle’s course true by that means. The accident was serious.

Hurriedly Frank communicated his discovery to Harry. The younger brother whistled.

“What on earth are we going to do, Frank?” he gasped out.

“Keep right on till we drop. It’s all we can do,” was the stern rejoinder, “we can’t pick up La Merced, without a binnacle light.”

CHAPTER XXIII.
SAVED BY WIRELESS

Frank was right. To keep on was all they could do. Without even a star to guide them and a wind fast springing up, surrounded by a display of electricity, that viewed from a place of safety would have been magnificent, but situated as they were was a terrible menace, they had no alternative.

The boy captain of the Golden Eagle stuck bravely to his wheel and time and again when the vessel gave a sickening “duck,” he righted her in the nick of time with a skilful adjustment of his planes and compensating balances. Neither boy spoke – indeed, in the roar of the elements that now surrounded them, it would have been difficult to hear. Crash followed crash so swiftly that like the lightning display it seemed all blended into one long horrible glare and uproar. Still, mercifully, it had not rained.

Harry crawled forward after a time from his seat by the engine and shouted in Frank’s ear:

“Where are we now?”

“Driving due east, I should judge.”

“Have you any hope that we can make a landing?”

Frank shook his head.

“Not in this.”

“Then there is only one thing to be done?”

“Yes.”

“Keep on driving her?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Good Lord!” thought Harry, “if the gasolene would hold out we’d land in Europe.”

The above conversation was not carried on in consecutive order as reported. The exigencies of guiding the craft, and the noise of the storm, made that an impossibility. Fragmentary sentences were all the boys could exchange, but they understood one another so well that with them a word meant as much as a whole sentence.

On and on drove the plunging craft and still the accident both boys had feared – the short circuiting of the engine – had not occurred. Could it be that they were going to weather it after all? Wild as the thought appeared, it put new heart into them.

“Do you know where we are?” asked Harry, clinging to the forward rail of the pilot-house.

“Not the slightest idea,” was the reply, “but I should say we cannot be far from the sea.”

The sea! The realization of this new peril sent a chill of terror through both boys. Once blown out to sea and they would stand not a chance of rescue.

“Hadn’t we better chance it and drop where we are?” asked Harry at length.

Frank shook a negative response.

“It would mean certain death – we should be dashed to pieces,” he said; “if we keep on we’ve got a fighting chance.”

As they were urged along before the storm Harry opened the trap in the pilot-house floor and peered through. By the blue illumination of the constant lightning display, he could see that they were still driving over the tree-tops. They were then still over solid land.

There was not a light to be seen, however, and wherever they were, they had been driven out of the civilized part of Nicaragua it seemed. The boys’ hearts sank as they gazed at the character of the country over which they were racing along. As Frank had said, there was not a chance for them to land there. They might ride the storm out if they kept on going – that was all they could do.

Once Frank entertained a desperate thought of heading the ship about, but as he put the helm over she gave such a frightful yaw that both boys thought the minute was their last. The Golden Eagle plunged down in a sickening swerve till it seemed that she could never right herself. Frantically Frank, although he could hardly keep his feet on the inclined pilot-house floor, which was pitched over at an angle of forty-five degrees, fought to bring her back on an even keel with one hand, while he clung to the pilot-house rail with the other.

After what had seemed an eternity of suspense the craft answered her helm and regulating planes and regained her balance. The scare the boys had received, though, prevented them from trying any more experiments. Thoroughly exhausted Frank at last relinquished the wheel to Harry, at the latter’s earnest solicitation. As the boys changed places the ship, none too steady under the conditions, gave a lurch to port that threw Frank from his feet and sent him crashing against the left-hand rail of the pilot-house. The force of the impact of his body snapped off the stanchions that supported the canvas screening round the pilot-box and he would have shot over the edge into countless feet of space if Harry had not grasped him and hauled him back to safety. Frank thanked him with a look. It was no time for words.

“Hark,” suddenly cried Frank, as there came a lull in the storm, “what is that?”

Below them both boys could hear a long, booming sound.

“It’s the surf breaking on the beach!” groaned Frank, “only Providence can save us now.”

How much longer they drove on above the sea, they had no means of reckoning, even if they had cared to. Their only hope was in daylight when there was a chance that some ship might see them and pick them up. Harry sat grimly at the wheel, keeping the creaking ship dead before the wind, which had now increased.

“It’s not much use,” he shouted to Frank, who lay on the pilot-house floor so as to keep the center of equilibrium as low as possible, “but we might as well stick to it as long as the engine does.”

Frank nodded and shouted back his favorite “While there’s life there’s hope.”

Suddenly, while an unusually prolonged and vivid flash enveloped the Golden Eagle and showed a wild sea leaping hungrily below her, Harry gave a loud shout:

“Frank, Frank,” he yelled, “look there!”

He pointed a little to the north of the direction the Golden Eagle was taking, or rather being driven, which, though the boys did not know it, was due east.

The elder brother raised his head above the pilot-house railing but the flash that illumined the object that caused Harry’s exclamation had died out.

“It was a steamer and she’ll pass right below us,” roared Harry.

“How can we attract their attention,” shouted back Frank.

“There’s one chance in a thousand and we’ll take it,” was the response of the youth at the wheel.

“Send out a wireless call.”

Frank leaped to the sending apparatus of the Golden Eagle’s wireless plant. To his delirious delight it was working perfectly despite the ship’s buffeting.

Even as he stripped off the cover, and lowered the ground rope which was interwoven with strands of phosphor bronze wire, though, he realized what a long chance it was they were taking. The steamer was nearer by this time. They could in fact see her lights below them; but she seemed a small craft, as well as they in their frenzied excitement at the sudden vision of hope that flamed up in them, could make out. It was unlikely she carried wireless. But, as Harry had said, it was one chance in a thousand. With a fervent prayer that it might be that ten hundredth chance, Frank sent the spark flashing and leaping across the crackling gap.

Dot – dot – dot! Dot – dot! Dot – dot – dot!

It was the universal signal of desperate need that his trembling fingers spelled out: S. O. S.!¹

If there were a ship fitted with wireless within the radius of their call she would come to their assistance, but both boys realized that that help would be too late to do them any good. Their one chance lay in securing the immediate attention of the craft below them.

“Fire your revolver, Harry!” shouted Frank, bending above the flaring sender spark.

The younger boy drew his magazine gun from his belt and fired all ten bullets it contained in a string of reports.

There came a blinding glare of lightning. In its radiance the boys, high in the air, could see below them the scene on the steamer as if in the light of day. The men on the steamer had evidently also seen them or heard the reports of Harry’s revolver, or what was more likely, received the wireless flash. Men were running about her decks and on the bridge the boys could see some one, evidently in command, issuing orders to several sailors who were casting loose a boat.

Their inspection was cut short. As the next flash revealed to them a boat being lowered over the side of the vessel and men pointing up at them, something parted with a loud crack.

It was one of the rudder wires that had carried away and a more serious accident at that moment could not have well befallen them. The Golden Eagle without her rudder controls heeled over drunkenly till, with a loud crashing sound, her engine was ripped clean out of her by its own weight.

The next minute the boys felt themselves dropping through what seemed endless space down to the roaring sea.

Even as they fell Frank realized that the parting of the engine from its bed had been a piece of good luck for them for relieved of that weight, there was a chance of the aeroplane floating by her own buoyancy till the boat could pick them up. All this shot through his mind in a second, and almost as it occurred to him he felt the aeroplane hit the water with a mighty thump. The next moment Frank felt the water close above his head and began fighting desperately to regain the surface.

Fortunately both he and Harry were skilled swimmers and as much at home in the water as Newfoundland dogs. As Frank at last found himself safe, clinging to the top of the half-submerged aeroplane, he anxiously looked about him for Harry. What he feared was that Harry might have got entangled in the stay wires or tiller ropes as the Golden Eagle fell into the sea.

To Frank’s unspeakable relief, however, at this juncture, he heard his name called right behind him, and a second later he had fished Harry out of the sea and hauled him up beside him on to the gradually sinking wreck of the Golden Eagle. They both joined in a lusty shout to attract the attention of the men in the boat they had seen lowered just before their dizzy fall.

Their shouts were hardly needed, however, for, from the bridge of the vessel, there shot out a long finger of radiance from the searchlight which, after sweeping about a few times, fell full on the boys. Drenched as they were they could not forbear waving their hands and giving a cheer as its light fell full on them.

Fifteen minutes later the Boy Aviators were on board the insurgent gunboat General Estrada and safe.