The Airship "Golden Hind" Part 14

Rapidly several thousand cubic feet of brodium were exhausted from the ballonets, with the result that the "Golden Hind" dropped to within a hundred feet of the ground.

There was just sufficient twilight to make out the nature of the landing place. It was a wide belt of gra.s.sland, dotted here and there with small trees. Hedges there were none.

"There are a couple of men on horseback, sir," reported Frampton.

"Good," replied Fosterd.y.k.e. "Let go both grapnels. See how she takes that."

Both of the stout barbed hooks engaged the moment they touched the ground. Even though the wire ropes were paid out in order to reduce the strain, the jerk was severe. Round swung the giant airship head to wind, but still she dragged. The grapnels had caught in a wire fence, and having uprooted half a dozen posts, were doing their level best to remove a five-mile sheep fence.

Up galloped the two farmers. The uprooting of their boundary fence hardly troubled them. The arrival of the airship--the first they had ever seen--occupied all their attention.

"Make fast for us, please," hailed Fosterd.y.k.e, having ordered another rope to be lowered.

"Right-o," was the reply. "We'll fix you up."

Dismounting and tethering their somewhat restive horses, the two Australians took the end of the third wire rope to the trunk of a large tree-the only one for miles, as it so happened. Fortunately they knew how to make a rope fast--an accomplishment that few people other than seamen possess.

"Where are we?" asked the baronet.

"In Minto County, ten miles from Kelmscott," was the reply.

"Any petrol to be had hereabouts?"

"Sure," was the unexpected answer. "How much do you want?"

"A hundred gallons--enough to take us to Fremantle," replied Fosterd.y.k.e rather dubiously.

"Two hundred if you want," offered the good Samaritan. "I'll run it along in less than an hour."

"Will to-morrow at daybreak do equally as well?" asked Sir Reginald, knowing the difficulty and possible danger of handling quant.i.ties of the highly volatile spirit in the dark. "We'll be all right here until morning if the wind doesn't increase."

"It won't," declared the farmer, confidently. "If anything it'll fall light. If you're in a hurry, I'll hitch you on to my motor lorry and tow you into Fremantle."

Fosterd.y.k.e thanked him and begged to be excused on the score that he was obliged by the terms of the race to make a flight without outside a.s.sistance in the matter of propulsion.

The two Australians, declining an invitation to go on board the airship, rode away in the darkness.

As the farmer had predicted, the wind fell away to a dead calm, so the airship was able to rest upon the ground, but ready, should the breeze spring up, to ascend to a hundred feet and there ride it out until the promised petrol was forthcoming.

"Now for our first dinner on or over Australian soil," exclaimed Fosterd.y.k.e. "By Jove, I'm hungry! What's going?"

He scanned the menu card. The cooks on the airship were good men at their work, and dinner, whenever circ.u.mstances permitted, was rather a formal affair.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Peter. "Covers laid for four, eh?"

"Yes," replied the baronet. "I'm expecting a guest. Ah! here he is.

Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Trefusis."

Kenyon and Bramsdean could hardly conceal their astonishment, for standing just inside the doorway, immaculately dressed in well-cut clothes, was the man they had hitherto known as Otto Freising, the fellow who had attempted to shoot Fosterd.y.k.e at Alexandria.

"Secret Service," explained the baronet. "Had to keep the affair dark, even from you two fellows."

"You certainly did us in the eye," said Peter.

"No more than I did Senor Jaures," rejoined Trefusis. "I had a rotten time cooped up with that bird, but it was worth it."

"So you've succeeded?" asked Fosterd.y.k.e.

Trefusis nodded.

"Wouldn't be here if I hadn't," he remarked. "It took me some time to get the right side of Senor Enrico, but I managed it. He rather looked a bit sideways at me when I pitched a yarn about being a Hun. However, I've got it out of him that he was employed by von Sinzig to kipper your part of the show, and judging by accounts he almost succeeded. You'll have enough evidence, Fosterd.y.k.e, to disqualify von Sinzig."

"I'll think about it," drawled the baronet. "After all's said and done the Hun is a sport, only his idea of sport differs radically from ours.

It's his nature, I suppose. But another time you fire at me with blank cartridges, Trefusis, old son, please don't aim at my head. Grains of burnt powder in one's eyes aren't pleasant."

"Nor did I feel very pleasant," rejoined the Secret Service man, "when that officious blighter suggested putting me under arrest and trying me in a Civil Court. He must have thought you pretty high-handed, rushing me off in your airship."

"Yes, it was as well I took Colonel Holmes into my confidence," said Fosterd.y.k.e. "Otherwise you might at this moment be cooling your heels in a 'Gippy' prison. However, we've got evidence against von Sinzig, if needs be."

"What are you going to do with Senor Jaures?" asked Trefusis.

"Do with him? Nothing much. Fact, I'll do it now, directly we've finished dinner."

The meal over, Fosterd.y.k.e ordered Enrico Jaures to be brought in. The look on the miscreant's features was positively astounding when he found his former companion in captivity revealed in his true colours.

"Now, Enrico Jaures," began Fosterd.y.k.e, without further preliminaries.

"You understand English, in spite of your previous denial. Read that.

If you agree to it, you are a free man the moment you've signed the statement."

At the promise of liberty Enrico plucked up courage. He had a wholesome respect for the word of an Englishman.

The doc.u.ment was in the form of a confession, stating that Enrico Jaures had agreed, for a certain sum promised by Count Karl von Sinzig, to hinder, either by crippling or destroying the "Golden Hind," Sir Reginald Fosterd.y.k.e's attempt to fly round the world.

"I'll sign," said Enrico.

He wrote his name. Kenyon and Trefusis witnessed the signature.

The baronet folded the doc.u.ment and placed it in his pocket.

"Now you can go," he said.

"But how am I to return to Gibraltar?" asked Jaures.

"That's your affair," replied Fosterd.y.k.e, sternly. "You ought to be thankful you're still alive. Now go."

At the first sign of dawn the Australian farmer, true to his word, arrived with a large motor-lorry piled with filled petrol cans. He was not alone. The seemingly spa.r.s.ely-populated district now teemed with people. Hundreds must have seen the "Golden Hind" pa.s.s overhead the previous evening, but how they discovered the airship's temporary anchorage was a mystery. There were townsmen in motorcars, st.u.r.dy farmers on motor-cycles, waggons, and carts, backwoodsmen on bicycles and on foot. Even the "sun-downer" cla.s.s were represented.

The "Golden Hind" had just completed her preparations for flying back to Fremantle aerodrome when a motor-cyclist rode up and handed Fosterd.y.k.e a telegram.