Kitabı oku: «The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless», sayfa 13

CHAPTER XXVII
HEMMED IN BY FLAMES

In the meantime in the noisome dungeon in which they lay, Frank and Harry Chester, and the officer they had struggled so bravely for, had given up all hope of ever seeing the light of day again. As nearly as they could calculate it was twelve hours or more since Bellman had thrust his head into their place of confinement and shouted that he would give them a last chance if they would tell him where the Golden Eagle II lay and where their companions were encamped. The boys, though faint from lack of food and almost dead with thirst, refused and Bellman with a savage curse had slammed the door.

For a time they had heard tramping about overhead as if there were last hasty preparations being made for the departure and then all grew silent as a grave. At that time, however, their fears were not so much that they were to be left behind to be starved in this black hole, as they had implicit faith in the man to whom Frank had given the Buddha. Time and again Harry, whose voice was growing momentarily fainter, had murmured to Frank:

“You don’t think he will fail us, Frank?” and Frank, although his own faith was beginning to diminish as the hours went by, had always responded reassuringly. He pointed out cheerfully – or as cheerfully as he could – that to the Oriental mind an oath made in the manner in which the red-banded serang had made it was sacred and to be obeyed at all hazards. Anything might have happened to delay the man’s coming, he argued, and there was no doubt that he would appear in due course and redeem his promise. Frank’s thoughts belied his cheerful words, however. There were a dozen things beside the breaking of his oath that might have caused the serang to be unable to liberate as he had promised. As the time passed by the conviction steadily grew in Frank’s mind that they had been deserted and that the three miserable occupants of the dungeon were at that moment the only living things on the island.

As for the lieutenant, he was sunk in a sort of coma in which it is doubtful, if he felt anxiety or any other emotion. He seemed stupefied by his sufferings after his first returning dawn of reason.

Suddenly, and when the boys’ hopes had reached their lowest ebb they were startled by the sound of footsteps walking above them. They shouted at the top of their voices and the footsteps ceased. Then they began again. Who could it be?

For a moment the idea of a rescue party flashed across Frank’s mind but he dismissed it as improbable. Nobody could have heard of their flight or located their place of captivity unless – Quatty!

Could it have been possible that the negro had conveyed word to their comrades of their plight. Frank hastily communicated his idea to Harry, but Harry dismissed it as improbable. Frank, too, agreed that Quatty was far more likely to have saved himself than to have bothered about them. How unjust they were to the black we know.

But there were certainly footsteps upstairs. The boys shouted and shouted. Friend or foe it made little difference to them. They were famished and even their foes would surely not be so inhuman as to refuse them food. Even the lieutenant aroused himself and set up a poor, feeble cry.

Hark, what is that they are shouting upstairs?

“Frank! Frank! Harry, where are you?”

A second’s listening convinced the boys they were not dreaming. Whoever was upstairs was shouting their names. They set up redoubled shouts and shortly after they heard hands fumbling at the lock of the prison door. A few seconds later the lock having refused to yield, the door came flying inward, burst from its hinges by a tree-trunk cut and used as a battering ram by Lathrop and Billy.

The scene after the boys were reunited and Lieutenant Chapin had been introduced may be imagined. There surely was never a more joyful reunion nor in more strange surroundings.

Billy described how after their flight from the mound-builders’ island they had decided, after careful reconnoitering, that the island was deserted. How this had come about of course they did not know, and were at first in despair as they concluded that the boys and the lieutenant must have been taken to the coast and carried off to slavery in the Far East. At the actual baseness of Captain Bellman’s mind they had not guessed till they found the prisoners.

They had agreed, however, to land and explore the island in the hope that they might find some clue to their comrades, and with that intention had descended to the large open space where the reducing operations had been carried on. In course of time they had arrived at the door of the big bunk-house and here had made a startling discovery.

Stretched across the door of the place was a dead body.

“And what do you think, Frank?” exclaimed Lathrop, “on examining it in one hand we found tightly clutched a key and – here’s the extraordinary part – in one of the pockets of the loose blouse he wore we discovered a little green Buddha exactly like the one the moonshiner sold you.”

“Poor serang,” sighed Frank, “he did then try to keep his word.”

His words demanded an explanation and the boy rapidly told the rescuers of the dead man’s oath to release them.

“If you had taken that key, Lathrop,” he concluded, “you could have opened the door easily without battering it down. Poor fellow – Bellman must have caught him coming back here and guessing for what purpose, he killed him.”

“The first thing to do is get you out of these stocks,” said Billy after he had detailed how, on hearing the boys’ shouts, they had traced them to the cellar in which they lay.

“Why not try the key,” suggested Billy, “it looked a pretty big affair to me to fit the lock we found on that door.”

“That’s a good idea,” assented Lathrop. He was up the stairs and back in a very short time and carried with him the key that had been found in the dead man’s hand. It fitted the stocks perfectly and furnished a further proof that the serang had actually been on his way to keep his promise when he was killed.

A twist of it in the heavy padlock and the unfortunate prisoners were at liberty with the exception of their handcuffs. With a cold chisel and hammer Lathrop struck these off. A few minutes later the boys had been helped out of the dungeon into what had been the blacksmith shop of Bellman’s gang. With the exception of a great stiffness and soreness, occasioned by their confinement, the prisoners were soon as well as ever, and after a hearty meal from the provision lockers of the Golden Eagle II, and a long account from Lieutenant Chapin, who was rapidly recovering, of his adventures, the boys were ready to start.

So interested had they been in talking, however, and so rapidly had the time flown that they had not looked about them or taken any note of anything but each other. Now, however, when they looked up they noticed a peculiar haze in the air and at the same time became aware of a choking sort of feeling that made their eyes sting and their nostrils itch.

“What is it?” asked Harry as they all noticed these symptoms.

Frank and Lieutenant Chapin were both on their feet and had exchanged grave glances. From where they had been seated they had not commanded a view of the ’glades. Now, however, as the little party hastily emerged they saw before them a sight that chilled the blood of the boldest of them. For as far as they could see, and sweeping down on them at terrible speed, was a wall of flames.

The Everglades were on fire!

With a quick gasp Frank recollected the dried brush he had noticed on the trail the day he and Harry left the boat. He realized that if the flames reached the island with such tinder to feed on they would sweep it from end to end. The Golden Eagle II would be destroyed and they doomed to a slow death from starvation.

“What about the other side of the island? Perhaps there is some way out there,” suggested the Lieutenant.

Frank shook his head.

“By the time we get there the flames would be roaring up the hillside here,” he said, “there is only one thing to do. Run for it.”

“Run for it?”

“Fly for it rather. In an hour’s time this island will be a black charred ash-heap,” was Frank’s reply.

“But, Frank,” was Harry’s exclamation, “the Golden Eagle II will only carry four, and then she is overburdened, and there are five of us here!”

“She’s got to carry us,” said Frank grimly, “or we’ll be burned to crisps, or starved if we escape death by fire.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Lighten her,” was the quiet reply, “dump overboard every ounce of weight we can spare.”

Feverishly the little party went about the work. First the transoms were ruthlessly ripped out and thrown aside. Then came the provisions and other equipment, and lastly even the navigating instruments.

“That’s lightened her about 150 pounds,” pronounced Frank. “We’ll try her with that and if it doesn’t work we’ll have to tear out the wireless and let that go too.”

By this time the advance guard of the flames was marching in a long ruthless line perilously close already to the island. The dry saw-grass blazed like tinder and the party on the island could distinctly hear the hungry roar of the flames as they advanced. The conflagration leaped the narrow water-courses as it came to them like a steeplechaser and the numerous runnels offered no more check to it than if they had not been there.

Even the broad water-course, used by Bellman and his men to get to and from the coast, did not check the progress of the flames. There was a fair wind blowing out of the northwest and before it red-hot brands were whisked across the stream and ignited the dry wastes on the other side.

“If we don’t hurry,” exclaimed Frank, as his eye took in this, “we shall be hemmed in.”

This was a new peril. With the flames only on one side they might have hoped to escape but if the blaze ringed the island in there would be grave danger in trying to cross it in their overburdened air-ship. For one thing the strange cross-currents created by a fire are alone enough to throw an aeroplane onto dangerous angles and Frank, as he gazed at the height to which the flames were leaping, added to this menace the fear that the overladen ship would not be able to rise high enough to clear them. What that meant there was no need for him to tell the others – he did not dare to entertain such a thought himself.

With all the speed they made the flames were swifter and by the time they had all scrambled into the chassis the island was surrounded by roaring flames and the hungry fire was beginning to attack the dried brush on its sides.

“Can we make it?” gasped Lathrop as he gazed at the terrifying spectacle.

“We’ve got to make it,” snapped Frank as Harry started the engine.

The atmosphere was by this time so obscured by choking smoke that it was as thick and dark as a fog. Water streamed from the boys’ eyes and noses and they speedily found that every breath they took seared their lungs as though a red-hot iron had been plunged into them.

Even if they could weather the flames, could they get through such smoke alive?

With a prayer on his lips Frank started the Golden Eagle II into the awful smothering pall. He could not see a foot in front of him and, indeed, in a second his eyes were blinded by the acrid reek.

“We’ve got to do it, we’ve got to do it,” he kept saying to himself through clenched teeth as he drove the aeroplane full into the inferno. It was as dark as night and as hot as a furnace mouth.

Caught in the currents generated by the heat the aeroplane swayed and zigzagged drunkenly. Frank, his eyes closed and drawing every breath with agony, clutched the wheel till the varnish came off on his hands. He could smell the scorching paint of The Golden Eagle II as the awful heat blistered it.

It flashed across his mind that the cloth covering the planes might catch and then? Somehow nothing seemed to matter much then to the dazed, half-suffocated boy, only one clear idea presented itself repeating over and over with trip-hammer regularity:

“Keep going ahead.”

But were they going ahead? Frank did not know. So badly was the craft handicapped by her weight and in such a whirl of heat-engendered air currents was she caught that it was difficult for Frank, blinded as he was, to tell.

Suddenly she gave a swoop down.

Was it the end?

No, she righted herself, more by instinct on Frank’s part than anything. The blinded, choked, helmsman jerked up her rising planes. But the next minute she repeated the blundering stagger downward and Frank realized, even in his dazed state, that she would never rise again if she wasn’t lightened.

The wireless! That would have to go.

With a cracked voice that sounded like a ghost of his usual hearty tones, Frank shouted back the command. But there was no response. Temporarily he checked the aeroplane’s downward tendency but he knew that the next time she would drop into the flames in spite of him and shrivel up with her passengers like a handful of flax.

Blinded by smoke, with cracked lips and swollen tongue Frank realized that something must have happened to the others. With one hand on the steering wheel, he reached back and seized the wireless-box by its base. It weighed 165 pounds and if he could get it free it meant their salvation.

He tugged with all the strength in his arms. The case moved slightly on its base. Frank knew the screws that held it in place did not reach very deep, but with one hand he could not manage to tear it loose.

Then he did a daring thing. Setting the rising planes at their full upward tendency he left the wheel locked by its spring gear and reeled with outstretched hands toward the apparatus. Once he tugged, – twice he tugged.

The box was coming loose but the aeroplane was sagging, he could feel it. It was getting hotter, too.

With bursting brain and blistered hands he heaved at the box till the blood ran from under his nails.

Would it never come?

With an effort that seemed to crack his shoulders, Frank gave a mighty heft. The box ripped loose with a suddenness that sent him staggering back; but the next minute he recovered his balance and heaved it overboard into the roaring vortex beneath them.

Then, with the instinct born of necessity, he groped his way to the wheel and as he set the Golden Eagle II on a rising course he realized that she was responding and they were saved.

Ten minutes later they emerged into the blessed air that, though still smoke-filled, above the fire-swept flats was still breathable. With blackened face and singed hair and eyebrows, Frank felt the difference, although his eyes were still closed and giving him agony. He inhaled it in great breaths of delight, saturating his lungs in its comparative freshness. Finally, when he could open his eyes, he looked back for the others.

They lay on the floor senseless, smoke-blackened, without motion.

But the Golden Eagle II under Frank’s guidance had passed the ordeal of flame and as she skimmed through the cooler air the unconscious members of the party, one by one recovered and grasped the hand of the boy who had saved them.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE BLACK AEROPLANE

The Tarantula, black, grim and business-like, lay at anchor off the mouth of the Jew-Fish River, her long, lean form rising and falling on the heavy swells and a curl of black smoke lazily issuing from each of her four black funnels, the foremost one of which was striped with four yellow bands.

Forward her crew lay about and loafed or fished, while aft Lieutenant Selby and the ensigns assigned to the command with him, paced the deck, looking from time to time into the wireless room to ascertain if any news had been heard from the boys. The answer each time was in the negative and hourly the naval officer’s apprehension grew. What could be the matter? If everything had gone well he should certainly have heard from them by now.

Of the submarine, also, nothing had been seen and this fact encouraged the young officer to believe that she was still up the river somewhere. A bright lookout had been kept day and night since Frank’s wireless announcing the discovery of Captain Bellman’s destination, but nothing had been seen of the expected craft. That she had utilized her diving apparatus and passed unnoticed in that way was unlikely as the water in which the Tarantula lay, was shoal even for her and the soundings that the lieutenant had made the day before showed that it would have been impossible for the submarine to have passed out in any other way but the main channel. So with steam up the Tarantula swung at her anchor and waited like a patient cat, watching an opportunity to pounce on a mouse. The idea of entering the river in boats and scouting for the submarine had entered the lieutenant’s head, but after consideration he had abandoned it. To reveal his presence to Bellman might spoil everything and as it was if the submarine was in the river, she was securely bottled up.

The hours slowly passed on and still no word came. Evening set in and the wireless was still silent.

“If those young rascals haven’t shown up by tomorrow morning, Bagsby, I shall be sorely tempted to head an expedition myself and go in search of them,” declared Selby – on whom the strain of the long wait was wearing – to one of his ensigns.

“Air-ship! dead off our bow, sir!” suddenly hailed the lookout forward; who, like everybody else, had been keeping a watch all day for some signs of the boys’ craft.

“By Jove, so it is!” exclaimed the lieutenant, bringing his glasses to bear.

High in the evening sky above the tangle of islands an air-craft was winging its way toward them. At first sight a mere speck, she grew rapidly larger as she neared the shore.

“But what can have happened to her?” exclaimed the lieutenant as the first vague blot of the ship resolved through his glasses into definite lines, “here, take a look, Bagsby.”

He handed the glasses to his subordinate, who laid them aside in a few minutes with the exclamation.

“Why, she’s as black as a coal, sir!”

“What’s that dangling at her stern, Bagsby?” asked Lieutenant Selby the next minute.

“Why, it looks like an American flag, sir,” responded the ensign, “but it’s almost as black as the rest of her and – just look at that, sir – the men in her all black, too!”

Hardly able to control his excitement the lieutenant took the glasses from his subordinate, though by this time the air-vessel was so close that the five persons aboard her were visible to the naked eye. They were waving furiously and shouting at the tops of their voices, though these sounded, to tell the truth, a bit feeble.

“Tarantula, ahoy!” came a hail from the aeroplane, as she swung in a graceful circle about the destroyer.

“Ahoy there,” hailed the lieutenant through a megaphone, “who are you?”

“The Golden Eagle II, Captain Frank Chester,” came back from the aeroplane as she swung by, “with Lieutenant Bob Chapin, aboard.”

The cheer that went up then roused the herons that were just settling down to bed and sent them and a hundred other varieties of Everglade birds swirling in wild affright up around the tree-tops. As for Selby he clapped Bagsby on the back till the young ensign sustained a violent fit of coughing.

“It’s Chapin and he’s safe; hurray!” he shouted. “Those boys have done the trick!”

“Send a boat ashore for us,” shouted the leader of the adventurers from the smoke-blackened ’plane, as she swung by once more, “we’ve got a lot to tell you.”

“I should think so,” commented the lieutenant to himself, as he ordered a boat lowered and seated himself in the stern sheets. While this was being done the boys had landed on a long sandy bar, which made an ideal grounding place. It didn’t take long, you may be sure, to get them into the boat and row them aboard the Tarantula where, after soap and towel had removed their sooty disguise, they made a meal that tasted to them infinitely more delicious than any of the more elaborate repasts any of them had ever eaten in New York. As for Lieutenant Chapin, to be once more aboard one of Uncle Sam’s ships and in the hands of friends, affected him to such a degree that after dinner he begged to be excused and paced in solitude up and down the deck for an hour or more, while Frank told and retold the story of their adventures.

While the lieutenant was gratefully recalling the boys’ exploit, he was awakened from his reverie by the splash of a paddle and looking up saw a canoe drawing near in which were seated three people. It was too dark of course for him to make out more than the outlines of their figures.

“Boat ahoy! What boat’s that?” hailed the lookout sharply.

“Well, we ain’t got no name but an Injun one and I disremember that,” came back the reply, “but tell me have you got two young chaps, named Chester, aboard?”

“Who is that?” hailed the lieutenant.

“My name’s Ben Stubbs. Who the dickens are you?” was the bluff reply.

“Lieutenant Chapin,” was the calm reply.

The result was astonishing.

“Well, I’ll be double horn-swoggled,” shouted the same bluff voice that had framed the question and the next minute there was a splash and loud sputtering sounds of indignation.

“Man overboard!” cried the Tarantula’s lookout.

“You black landlubbers! Upsetting me overboard and trying to drown me, eh? Ef I had you at a rope’s end I’d make you walk fancy,” came over the water in tones running the gamut of indignation.

By this time the boys and the others were on deck and as they heard and amazedly recognized the sputtering voice there came from them a delighted hail of:

“Ben Stubbs!”

“Come aboard!”

“Sure I will if this consarned contraption of a canoe we’re in wull hold me an’ my voice, but every time I speak it tips over,” was the indignant reply.

But there were no more accidents and a few seconds later the boys and the dripping Ben were wringing hands and slapping backs till the tears came to the rugged old adventurer’s eyes.

“Keelhaul me if I ain’t glad to see you,” shouted Ben, “and the lootinant, too. I knowed they’d git yer ef they set out to,” roared Ben, “and by the great horn-spoon, they have.”

While this was going on the two other occupants of the boat – who were none other than Quatty and Pork Chops – had clambered on deck and stood shyly by. They, too, came in for their share of greetings and congratulations.

Then Ben, of course, had to relate his adventures with the Seminoles, winding up with the account of how he came to leave the Indian village.

It seemed that a wandering party of Seminoles had come across Quatty, wearily paddling toward the coast from the mound-builders’ island, and as he was almost exhausted had taken him in their canoes and poled him at top speed to the island. Arrived there Quatty was roused to great indignation, as well as surprise when he discovered that Ben was a captive and demanded his immediate release. By virtue of Quatty’s power over the tribesmen, Ben had immediately been set free and he and Quatty canoed to Camp Walrus. Here they found Pork Chops, half crazy from fright and as he would not hear of being left alone any longer they agreed to take him with them to the Tarantula, whither Ben had decided to go as soon as he found the camp deserted. The rest the boys knew.

The relation of Ben’s narrative, and of course that of the boys which had to be retold to the newcomer, consumed so much time that they were all startled when eight bells (midnight) rang out.

The echo had hardly died away when a black form was seen rushing through the water from the mouth of the river.

It was sighted simultaneously by almost all on deck and recognized at once for what it was.

Captain Bellman’s submarine!