Airship Part 3

The great one hesitated. On the one hand, he wanted to impress his callers by admitting that his signature was "absolutely it." On the other, years of punctilious devotion to the ethics of red tape urged him to deprecate such a cutting of the Gordian knot.

"No, Sir Reginald," he replied. "Both are necessary. One is not conclusively in order without the other. I'll be at the office by three."

It was now a quarter-past two. Fosterd.y.k.e felt strongly inclined to enquire pointedly why three-quarters of an hour would be taken up by the Commissioner in getting from his quarters to his office.

By ten minutes past three the various doc.u.ments were sealed and signed. As the compet.i.tors were on the point of taking their departure the Commissioner spoke again.

"I don't seem to have seen Form 4456," he observed dryly. "That had to be obtained before you left England."

"It wasn't," replied the baronet, bluntly. "An oversight, I admit, but you don't suggest that I return to England to get it?"

"It is necessary," was the rejoinder. "Without it the flight would not be in order. In fact, as an authorised representative of the International Air Board I can rule you out of the contest."

"Piffle!" declared Fosterd.y.k.e hotly. He was rapidly nearing the end of his restraint. "This, I may observe, is a contest of aircraft, not a paper compet.i.tion. Form 4456 is not an absolute essential. Since you require it, I presume the case can be met if my representative in England has the form made out and sent to you by registered post. It will be in your hands before the 'Golden Hind' completes the circuit."

The Commissioner consulted a ponderous tome, chock-a-block with rules and regulations for aerial navigation, written in official phraseology so confusing that it was possible to have more than one interpretation for at least seventy-five per cent. of the complicated paragraphs.

Quoting Article 1071, sub-section 3c, the official made the discovery that the rendering of Form 4456 could be dispensed with in circ.u.mstances laid down in Article 2074, section 5c, etc., etc. Thereupon he rang a bell, summoned a head clerk, who in turn deputed a junior to fetch a certain form. When this was forthcoming a blob of sealing-wax, the impress of a seal, and the great man's illegible signature, and the trick was done. As far as the International Air Board was concerned the "Golden Hind" was a recognised and duly authorised compet.i.tor for the Chauva.s.se Prize.

There was still the Recognised Military Authority to be dealt with. That official was urbanity personified. He did everything in his power to expedite matters, but red tape was stronger than gold lace.

The loud report of a gun warned Fosterd.y.k.e and his companion that sunset had descended upon the Rock. The gates of the fortress were closed till sunrise.

"Won't affect you," explained the courteous official. "You can get back by the boat from the Old Mole. I won't keep you very much longer. It really isn't my fault."

"Gibraltar was a bad choice of mine for a starting-point," observed Fosterd.y.k.e.

"'Fraid so," agreed the other. "Ah, here we are. Thank you, Wilson. Where's my fountain pen? Where's---- Oh, dash it all, where's everything? ... That's settled, then. Have a drink before you go? No? Well, cheerio, and the very best of luck."

Armed with the necessary doc.u.ments, "sealed, signed, and delivered," Fosterd.y.k.e and Bramsdean found themselves in the open air. Darkness had already fallen. It was a good two miles from Little Europa Point to the Old Mole, and not a vehicle of any sort was to be seen.

Tired, hot, and hungry they reached the spot where a naval pinnace was supposed to be awaiting them. It was not there. A message erroneously delivered had sent the boat back to the dockyard. Not to be done, Fosterd.y.k.e hired a native boat, paying without demur a villainous-looking Rock Scorp the excessive sum he demanded.

For a quarter of an hour the boat rowed about while the baronet and his companion gazed aloft in the hope of spotting the "Golden Hind" against the dark sky.

"She's gone!" declared Bramsdean.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Fosterd.y.k.e, irritably. "Why should she?"

Nevertheless in his mind he was convinced that such was the case.

Presently the boat ran close to the buoy to which the airship had been moored. Both men recognised the buoy by the number painted on it. No wire rope ran upwards to an invisible object floating in the darkness of the night.

Unaccountably, mysteriously the "Golden Hind" had disappeared.

CHAPTER VIII.

--CAST ADRIFT.

Enrico Jaures, Spaniard on his father's side and German on his mother's, with a dash of almost every other Continental nation's blood in his veins, lived or rather existed in a mean dwelling behind the King's Bastion, on the west side of Gibraltar.

Indolent, thriftless, and easy-going on the one hand, crafty and quarrelsome on the other, he possessed all the bad points that characterise the criminal cla.s.ses of the two countries where his parents first saw the light. What he did for a living and how he earned money was a mystery even to his polyglot neighbours. Yet, without being well off, he appeared to be always "flush" with money.

Contrary to the general demeanour of the Rock Scorps, Enrico Jaures expressed no astonishment when the "Golden Hind" appeared over the high ground beyond Algeciras. He was expecting the airship, although he had to confess to himself that she had certainly arrived prematurely. Evidently this was not according to plan.

He sat, smoked innumerable cigarettes, and thought as deeply as a half-breed Spaniard can. Twice he got up, yawned, stretched himself and ambled back to the house to partake of a meal consisting princ.i.p.ally of olives, garlic, and maize. Then back he came to his post of vantage and sat gazing stolidly at the five hundred feet of inflated gasbag riding easily to her wire cable, while her crew, bringing the airship close to the surface, were busily engaged in pumping up petrol from a tank-lighter.

The shadows were lengthening considerably when a white-robed Moor approached the reclining Jaures--a dignified, olive-featured man, wearing a thick black beard and moustache.

"The Englishman has started," observed the new-comer, speaking in Spanish with a decidedly guttural accent.

"That I know," rejoined Enrico.

"But not so von Sinzig," continued the other in a low tone, giving a furtive glance over his shoulder. "Until he arrives at Ma.s.sowah it is doubtful whether he will know that this English airship is on his heels. Why is she here so soon?"

"I know not," replied Jaures. "Two men landed from her. They went in the direction of Buena Vista."

The pseudo Moor shrugged his shoulders.

"Two thousand five hundred pesetas are awaiting you in the Banqua del Espiritu at Algeciras, friend Enrico," he said in a low voice. "Prevent that airship's departure even for twelve hours and the money will be paid you."

"How can I?" asked Jaures, showing more interest than he had hitherto displayed. "I cannot place a bomb on board her, like I did on board the Henri Artois at Barcelona."

"S'sh! Not so loud," exclaimed the other warningly. "How you earn the money is your affair."

The supposed Moor pa.s.sed on, leaving Enrico Jaures gazing thoughtfully at the British airship.

He sat and pondered until the refuelling operations were completed and the "Golden Hind" allowed to rise a hundred feet above the sea. With the setting of the sun a gentle breeze sprang up from the nor'east, causing the hitherto almost motionless airship to sway as she fretted at her cable.

He waited until darkness had settled upon the scene, then once more made his way into the house. This time he did not eat, but fortified himself with a long drink out of an earthenware bottle.

Drawing his knife, he carefully oiled the blade and replaced it in its sheath. Then, having selected a marline-spike from a tool box, he slung the implement from his neck by means of a lanyard, hiding it under his coloured shirt.

These preparations completed, he walked slowly and unconcernedly to the Old Mole.

By this time the water-front was almost deserted. A patrol marched stolidly down the street; Enrico stepped into the shelter of a narrow courtyard until the khaki-clad party had disappeared; but before he could resume he had to await the pa.s.sing of a gaitered and belted naval picquet.

The coast cleared, he reached the Mole. A tramp steamer and a few feluccas were moored alongside. Farther out a tug was engaged in shepherding a couple of large lighters alongside an East-bound liner, while changing red, white, and green lights betokened the presence of swift-moving steamboats in the bay. Standing out against the faint starlight he could discern the "Golden Hind." Even as he looked a gleam of light shot through the windows of one of the compartments, and then another, both being almost instantly screened.

"Two thousand five hundred pesetas," whispered Jaures to himself. "A good price for a little swim."

Without troubling to remove any of his clothes, although he kicked off his canvas shoes, Enrico cautiously descended a flight of steps until his feet touched the water. Listening to a.s.sure himself that no one was about, he glided in as noiselessly as an eel, and swam with slow, steady strokes under the counter of the tramp and close to her wall sides until he gained her bows.

Taking his bearings of the airship's mooring-buoy, he resumed his easy progress cautiously lest feathers of phosph.o.r.escent spray should betray his presence.

A quarter of an hour's swim brought him up to the mooring-buoy. With considerable difficulty, for the large barrel-shaped buoy was coated with barnacles and slippery with seaweed, Enrico contrived to draw himself clear of the water.

Again he waited, listening to the sounds emanating from the airship a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet overhead. The wire hawser, acting as a conductor, enabled him to hear with great distinctness, and possessing a good knowledge of English he was able to pick up sc.r.a.ps of conversation between the crew. That helped him but little, for they were talking of matters as remote from the topic of the great race as the Poles.

Enrico Jaures next devoted his attention to the shackle that secured the thimble spliced in the end of the cable to the big ring bolt of the buoy.

He grunted with satisfaction when he discovered that the shackle was threaded and not secured by a forelock, but at the same time he found by the sense of touch that whoever had been responsible for the job had done his work well by securing the pin by means of a piece of flexible wire.

This latter Jaures managed to cast loose, then, with the aid of his marline-spike, he began to unfasten the shackle-pin, pausing occasionally as the strain on the wire rope increased.

At last the deed was accomplished. The shackle-pin clattered upon the rounded surface of the buoy and rebounded into the water; but almost simultaneously Enrico Jaures found himself being whisked aloft. A snap-hook at the end of a wire had caught in his belt, and there he was, suspended ignominiously like a horse being slung on board a ship, already a hundred feet or more above the surface of the sea.

His first impulse was to cut loose his belt and drop, but a downward glance at the dark unfathomable void made him abruptly change his mind.

His sole thought was now that of self-preservation. Fearful lest his leather belt should break and send him hurtling through s.p.a.ce he clung desperately to the wire.

Fax below him the lights of Gibraltar seemed to be gliding past as the freed airship drifted towards the strait separating Europe from the African sh.o.r.e.

It was bitterly cold aloft. The keenness of the rarefied air was intensified by the fact that his clothes were saturated with salt water. A numbing pain crept down both arms. His muscles seemed to be cracking under the strain, while his fingers closed round the wire until the nails sunk deep into his palms.

He shouted for help--his voice sounding more like the yelp of a jackal than that of a human being. But no response came from the airship a hundred feet above him.

"Dios!" he exclaimed in agony. "This is indeed the end."

CHAPTER IX.

--THE ESCAPADE OF ENRICO JAURES.

"What are those blighters doing?" soliloquised Kenyon for the twentieth time. "Are they buying the place, or are they poodle-faking? They ought to have been back hours ago."

It was well after sunset. The "Golden Hind" had taken in stores and provisions, and had replenished her fuel and oil tanks. An anchor watch had been set, and having "gone the rounds" in order to satisfy himself that everything was in order Kenneth Kenyon had gone to his cabin to write letters that would be sent ash.o.r.e when the picket-boat brought off the skipper and Bramsdean.

A shrill blast of the voice-tube whistle made Kenyon hasten across the long narrow cabin. There was something insistent about the summons. It was not the discreet apologetic trill that the look-out man gave when he wished to report some trivial incident to the officer of the watch.

"h.e.l.lo!" replied Kenyon.

"We're adrift, sir," announced the man, excitedly.

Telling the look-out to call the duty-watch, Kenyon replaced the whistle in the mouth of the voice-tube, struggled into his leather, fur-lined coat, and hurried to the navigation-room. As he pa.s.sed the various motor-rooms he noticed that the air-mechanics of the duty-watch were already at their posts awaiting the order to get the engines running.

Throwing open one of the windows, Kenyon looked out into the night. There was no staggering, biting wind. Drifting with the breeze, the airship was apparently motionless save for a gently-undulating movement, but the merest glance served to corroborate the look-out man's words. Already the "Golden Hind," having risen to 6000 feet and still climbing, was well to the south'ard of Europa Point. He could see the lighthouse on the south-western point of the peninsula of Gibraltar steadily receding as the airship approached the African coast.

Kenyon was on the point of telegraphing for half-speed ahead when he bethought him of the cable. More than likely, he decided, the wire rope had parted half-way between the nose of the fuselage and the buoy. There was danger in the comparatively light, springy wire getting foul of the for'ard propellers. Stranded wire is apt to play hanky-panky tricks.

"Get the cable inboard," he ordered. "Don't use the winch or you won't get the wire to lie evenly on the reel. Haul it in by hand."

Two of the crew descended to the bow compartment, which, besides forming a living-room for the men, contained the cable winch.

"'Get it in by 'and,' 'e said," remarked one of the men to his companion. "Blimey! There ain't 'arf a strain on the blessed thing. Bear a 'and, chum."

Presently one of the men returned to the navigation-room.

"Pardon, sir," he said, saluting, "but we can't haul the wire in. It's foul of something. Shall we bring it to the winch, sir?"

"Foul of something, eh?" echoed Kenyon. "Does that mean we've hiked up the blessed mooring-buoy? Switch on the bow searchlight, Jackson."

The order was promptly obeyed, and the rays of the 10,000 candle-power lamp were directed vertically downwards.

Leaning well out of the open window, Kenyon peered along the glistening length of tautened cable until parting from the converging rays of the searchlight it vanished into s.p.a.ce.

"Two degrees left," ordered Kenneth. "Good--at that. By Jove! What's that? A man!"

Filled with a haunting suspicion that the suspended body might be that of his chum Peter, Kenyon felt his heart jump into his throat; but a second glance, as the motionless figure slowly revolved at the end of the cable, relieved Kenneth's mind on that, score. Still, it was a human being in dire peril.

"Heave away handsomely," continued Kenyon. "Stand by to avast heaving," he added.

The orders were communicated to the hands at the cable-winch. Steadily the winch-motor clanked away until the word was pa.s.sed to "'vast heaving." The luckless individual at the end of the wire was now dangling thirty feet below the bows of the fuselage.

It would have been useless to have hauled him up to the hawse-pipe, because there would be no means of getting him on board. The only practical way to reach him was by lowering a rope from a trap-door on the underside of the cha.s.sis midway between the two hawse-pipes in the bows.

Meanwhile Kenyon was deftly making "bowlines on the bight" at the extremities of two three-inch manilla ropes.

"Jackson," he said, addressing the leading hand of the duty-watch, "I'm going after that chap. Tell off a couple of men to attend to each of the ropes. If I make a mess of things and don't get back, keep the ship head to wind till daylight, and then make for our former mooring. There'll be plenty of help available."

Adjusting one of the loops under his arms and another round his legs above his knees, Kenneth slipped through the narrow trap-hatch, taking the second rope with him. It was a weird sensation dangling in s.p.a.ce with about 8000 feet of empty air between him and land or sea, for by this time the "Golden Hind" was probably over the African coast. But soon the eerie feeling pa.s.sed and Kenneth, courageous, cool-headed and accustomed to dizzy heights, had no thought but for the work in hand.

"At that!" he shouted, when he found himself on the same level with the man he hoped to rescue. "Take a turn."

Ten feet from him was the unconscious Enrico Jaures. The question now was, how was that intervening s.p.a.ce to be bridged?

Kenyon began to sway his legs after the manner of a child on a swing.

"If the rope parts, then it's a case of 'going west' with a vengeance," he soliloquised grimly. "Christopher! Isn't it beastly cold?"

Momentarily the pendulum-like movement increased until Kenneth was able to grip the arm of the unconscious man. As he did so Enrico's belt, that had hitherto prevented him from dropping into s.p.a.ce, parted like pack-thread.

With a jerk that nearly wrenched the rescuer's arms from their sockets, the deadweight of the Scorp almost capsized Kenyon out of the bow-line. As it was, he was hanging with his head lower than his feet, holding on with a grip of iron to Jaures' arms. Thus hampered, he realised that it was manifestly impossible to make use of the second bow-line.