On a Torn-Away World Part 6

"No, sir. But on a mountain top a tempest looks much the same."

Mark, while at the controls, had scaled the machine down the air-ways until they were not more than fifteen hundred feet from the earth. But the boys decided to let the storm gather beneath them, and so shot the _s...o...b..rd_ up again until the indicator registered three thousand feet.

Near the earth it must have been very warm and sultry; but up here it was down to freezing, and the party were all warmly dressed. The clouds soon hid the whole earth from them and the great flying machine traveled in s.p.a.ce, with the star-lit heavens above and the rolling ma.s.s of vapor, streaked now and then with lightning flashes, beneath.

The deafening roll of the thunder awoke Washington White from a short nap, and the darkey was not at all sure that he was safe from the lightning bolts.

"How d'I know dem bolts won't fly disher way?" he demanded of the boys when they tried to rea.s.sure him.

"Why, the earth attracts the electric bolt, and that attraction is much stronger than any the _s...o...b..rd_ may have for the electricity in the clouds," Mark told him. "I don't know erbout dat," grumbled Wash. "An' if jest one o' dem crazy lightning bolts should take it into its haid ter segastuate eround disher flying merchine--biff! bang!

dat would be erbout all. Dere would be a big bunch o' c.r.a.pe hung on Wash White's do', suah as you is bawn, boy!"

But although the roar of the thunder and whining of the wind nearly drowned other sounds in and about the flying machine, save for a freshening of the gale the _s...o...b..rd_ was at first but little disturbed by the tempest which raged with such fury a thousand feet below.

Suddenly Mark caught sight of something moving across the red streak in the eastern sky--the light that warned them of the approach of the sun.

"What is that--a huge bird?" he demanded of Andy Sudds, pointing this moving figure out to the hunter.

Andy's eyes were very keen, for he was used to sighting along a rifle and gazing over long distances in search of game. But he, too, thought the object must be a bird.

"I declare, I didn't know birds flew so high," said Mark. "It must be an eagle. No other fowl could fly so high."

"'Nless it were b.u.t.tsy," remarked Washington, _sotto voce_. The professor was still asleep and the boys paid little attention to the flying object for some time. It was coming up behind the _s...o...b..rd_, and they had no occasion to look behind.

The sun arose, angry and red, while the thunder continued to roll below them, and the crackling of the electric flashes was like minute guns.

The _s...o...b..rd_ was winging its way along at about seventy-five miles per hour. Wash had gone into the covered galley to prepare breakfast. Jack was still in the operator's seat.

Suddenly Andy Sudds uttered a loud shout. A huge shadow was thrown athwart the flying _s...o...b..rd_. Some object was hovering over them and they cast their eyes upward, at Andy's cry, to see another aeroplane swooping down directly upon them.

It was not the machine manned by Secret Service Agent Ford and his companion, but a much heavier and more rapid vehicle. And until its shadow fell across the _s...o...b..rd_, the boys had had no warning of its approach.

At first glance it was apparent that the strange aircraft intended mischief. It was shooting down from a higher level, its sharp bow aimed directly for the _s...o...b..rd_. Jack pushed over the switch and raised the bow of their own ship. She leaped forward and began to slant upward, too.

But instantly the course of the stranger was deflected to meet this change in the movement of the _s...o...b..rd_. She had the advantage of the boys' craft, too. She evidently proposed to retain her overhead position, and as she shot in closer, Jack was constrained to descend again to escape collision with her.

"Keep away!" he shouted through the transmitter, and at his cry, and the bustle about him, the professor was awakened.

But no reply came from the strange aeroplane, although they could see several figures moving upon her. It swooped down upon them, and Jack had to deflect his planes again and slant downward toward the storm-cloud.

And then he saw the other peril. He was between two great dangers. If the reckless aviator tried to ram him from above, his only escape was by plunging through the tempest which raged just below them.

Down came the stranger upon the _s...o...b..rd_ again. She surely meant them ill--she was bent on their destruction. And meanwhile the thunder roared below and the crackling of the lightning was almost incessant.

Jack Darrow had to decide quickly--and he must determine which of the two risks to take.

CHAPTER VI

ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND

Speedy as the _s...o...b..rd_ was, she could not get out from under the shadow of the strange aeroplane. That was driven at a sharp angle down upon the boys' flying machine, and it seemed to all those in the lower 'plane that a collision was imminent.

The thunder fairly deafened them all. Around them rolled the mists and the wind shrieked through the stays of the aeroplane and shook the structure like a dog worrying a bone.

Down they fell, and in an instant the rushing rain, emptied in a torrent from the clouds, swept about them, saturating their garments and beating the flying machine itself toward the distant earth.

During the next few moments Jack Darrow, Mark Sampson, and their companions were in as grave peril as had ever threatened them in their eventful lives.

The torrents of water all but beat the flying machine to the earth--and to be dashed down from such a height spelled death to all and destruction to the aeroplane.

Jack, however, had been taught to keep cool in moments of danger, and he realized that their lives depended entirely upon his handling of the great machine. They had descended below the level of the storm-cloud at a most inopportune moment. They were caught in the midst of a veritable cloudburst.

Shaken desperately by the wind, and beaten upon by tons upon tons of water, it was a wonder that the great planes, or wings, of the flying machine were not torn away. All Jack could do was to guide her the best he could, and all his companions could do was to cling to a slender hope and endure the lashing of the gale.

But Jack Darrow did not propose to be cast to the ground--and the flying machine and his friends with him--without some further attempt to avert such a catastrophe.

After the first breath-taking rush of the storm he diverted the course of the machine again upward. He could scarcely see, the driving rain was so blinding; nor could he observe the indicators before him with any clearness. But he was quite sure that the enemy that had driven him down into the storm-cloud could see the _s...o...b..rd_ no better than he could see that strange aeroplane that had threatened to collide with them.

So he shot the _s...o...b..rd_ upward again at a long slant, and put on all the power of the engine to drive her onward. The flying machine shook and throbbed in every part. The power of the engines would have driven her, under other and more favorable conditions, at more than one hundred miles an hour--possibly a hundred and twenty-five.

Jack himself was almost blinded and deafened. He was strapped to his seat, so could give both hands to the work of manipulating the levers.

He brought the _s...o...b..rd_ through the cloud and--with startling suddenness--they shot out of the ma.s.s of rolling moisture and into the sunlight of the dawn. But they were far off their course.

The change from the chaos of the storm-cloud to the almost perfect calm of the upper ether was so great that it was almost stunning. For a minute none of the five spoke a word.

Then it was Mark who shouted:

"There's that 'plane again, Jack I Look out for her!"

The enemy had missed them. She was some miles away, and although still on a level above, at the pace the _s...o...b..rd_ was now traveling it would take a fast flying machine indeed to overtake her.

The pursuit of the enemy (which they all believed to be the smuggler, manned by Bainbridge and his friends) was not kept up for long. By eight o'clock the _s...o...b..rd_ had dropped the other machine below the horizon, and the swift pace at which they had driven the _s...o...b..rd_ was rapidly bringing them once more toward Canada.

The storm had broken, but the clouds still hovered below them. They descended about noon, pa.s.sing harmlessly through the vapor which had so long hidden the earth from them, and so came to within a thousand feet of the ground, where they swung along at fair speed for some hours.

They crossed the line, but did not descend until near St. Thomas. They went out of their way a good bit to land near this town on the sh.o.r.e of the St. Lawrence, for the flying machine had been so shaken in its struggle with the thunderstorm that some repairs were needed.

They descended in a field on the edge of the town, gave the farmer who owned the place a five-dollar bill to allow the machine to stand on his land, and then engaged him to drive Professor Henderson and the boys into town.

While the professor saw the authorities and obtained a legal doc.u.ment recommending the exploring party to the good offices of all British-Canadian officers whom they might meet, the boys went to a machine shop to have a rod repaired. The party took supper with the farmer, and an hour later the flying machine being p.r.o.nounced by both Mark and Jack in perfect order, they got off amid the cheers of the onlookers, whose numbers were by that time swelled to almost five hundred persons.

It was long after dark and the moon had not risen. It was a cloudless night, however, and as the flying machine soared heavenward the voyagers could look deep into the seeming black-velvet of the skies, picked out by the innumerable sparkling stars, and thought they had never seen so wonderful or beautiful a sight.

As they cast their gaze downward, too, they beheld the torches at the Canadian farm rapidly receding, and then, in a few minutes, they were flying over St. Thomas, where the lights twinkled, too. Then they shot over the broad, island-dotted bosom of the St. Lawrence River, and so on across country and town toward the vast Canadian wilderness.

The professor and Andy had the watch and Jack and Mark went to bed.

The excitement of the previous twenty-four hours had kept the boys up; but once they closed their eyes, they slept like logs all night. Andy Sudds relieved the professor now and then in the operator's seat, and they did not call the boys until Washington White made breakfast at daybreak. By that time the _s...o...b..rd_ had pa.s.sed Lake St. John, far to the north and east, and was heading for Hudson Bay. The earth below them was a checker-board of forest and field, with here and there a ribbon of river, and occasionally a group of farmsteads, or a small town. Suddenly they were forced down, and had to remain many hours for repair work before ascending again.