The Airship "Golden Hind" Part 16

"We'll fly inland when we sight Auckland," decided the count. "No, don't take her up any higher. There is now no need for concealment.

Let these New Zealanders see and comment upon the fact that their islands are not beyond reach of a good German airs.h.i.+p."

And so, flaunting her prowess in the rapidly-growing daylight, Z64 approached the town of Auckland. The Zeppelin was within ten miles of the place when one of the crew shouted the disconcerting information that there was an airs.h.i.+p on the starboard bow, travelling east by north.

Rapping out a furious oath, von Sinzig s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pair of binoculars.

He had never before set eyes on the "Golden Hind," although the British airs.h.i.+p had pa.s.sed almost immediately above him within a few minutes of Z64 leaving her Spanish base, but instinctively he realised that this was his greatest rival, Sir Reginald Fosterd.y.k.e's creation.

"Gott in Himmel!" shouted von Sinzig. "Leutter, you numbskull, you made a hideous mess of things last night! Look--the 'Golden Hind'!"

CHAPTER XVII--A SURPRISE FOR CAPTAIN PROUT

Captain Abraham Prout, master and part owner of the topsail schooner _Myrtle_, of 120 tons burthen, came on deck on hearing the mate give the order "All hands shorten sail!"

It was six o'clock in the morning, still dark and very cold, for the _Myrtle_ was on the fortieth parallel of the Southern Hemisphere, and the month being June it was mid-winter. There were flakes of snow flying about. For the last three days and nights it had either been sleeting, raining, or snowing, or else all three together; but the wind was fair, and there was every prospect of the schooner making a quick pa.s.sage from Albany to Hobart.

"There's something behind this muck, Abe," remarked the mate, who, on the strength of being the "Old Man's" brother-in-law, was on familiar terms with Captain Prout. "The old hooker won't carry her topsails with the breeze a-freshenin'. Best be on the safe side, says I."

"Quite right, Tom," agreed the skipper. "New topmasts cost a mort sight o' money in these hard times. Anything to report?"

"Nothin'," replied the mate, laconically.

He shook the frozen sleet from the rim of his sou'wester and turned to inform one of the crew, in polite language of the sea, that "he'd better get a move on an' not stand there a-hanging on to the slack."

"There's some tea a-goin', Tom," announced Captain Prout. "Nip below an' get a mug to warm you up a bit."

The mate fell in with the suggestion with alacrity. The skipper, having seen the hands complete their task of "gettin' the tops'ls off her,"

went aft to where the half-frozen helmsman was almost mechanically toying with the wheel.

Through sheer force of habit Captain Prout peered into the feebly illuminated compa.s.s-bowl. Even as he did so, there was a tremendous crash.

The _Myrtle_ trembled from truck to kelson, while from aloft a jumble of splintered spars, cordage, and canvas fell upon the deck like a miniature avalanche.

Captain Prout's first impressions were those of pained surprise. For the moment he was firmly convinced that the schooner had piled herself upon an uncharted rock, but the absence of any signs of the vessel pounding against a hard bottom rea.s.sured him on that point.

Although in ignorance of what had occurred, the tough old skipper rose to the occasion.

"Steady on your helm!" he shouted to the man at the wheel. "Don't let her fall off her course."

The helmsman obeyed. It was no easy matter, since he was enveloped in a fold of the mainsail and the _Myrtle_ was towing the main-topmast and a portion of the cross-trees alongside.

Alarmed by the commotion, the "watch below"--two men and a boy--rushed on deck, while the mate, issuing from the after-cabin with a tin pannikin of tea still grasped in his hand, raised his voice in a strongly worded enquiry to know what had happened to the old hooker.

"Get a light, Tom, an' we'll have a squint at the damage," shouted the Old Man. "One of you sound the well and see if she's making any. d.i.c.k, you just see if them sidelights are burning properly."

The mate disappeared, to return with a hurricane lamp.

"Jerusalem!" he exclaimed. "Ain't it a lash up?"

The mainmast had been broken off five feet below the cross-trees, with the result that the main and throat halliard blocks had gone with the broken spars, while the mainsail, with the gaff and boom, had fallen across the deck. The shroud halliards still held, and the wire shrouds themselves trailed athwart both bulwarks. Apparently the foremast was intact, since it was the main topmast stay that had parted under the strain.

This much Captain Prout saw, noted, and understood, but what puzzled him was a telescoped object, looking very much like an exaggerated top-hat, that lay upon the deck between the mainmast fife-rail and the coaming of the main hatch.

"Guess it's a meteorite," hazarded the mate.

"Meteorite, my foot!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Captain Prout, scornfully. "If't had been, 'twould ha' gone slap bang through the old hooker, an' we'd have been in the ditch."

"It's had a good try, anyway," rejoined the mate. "Half a dozen deck planks stove in."

He held the lantern close to the mysterious object.

"Looks like a bloomin' bath," he continued, "and I'm hanged if there isn't a whopping big bird in it. Rummiest birdcage I've ever set eyes on."

The cause of the damage to the _Myrtle's_ top-hamper and deck planks was Z64's observation basket. Instead of falling into the sea and decorously sinking to the bottom, as von Sinzig had hoped, the contrivance had struck the only vessel within a radius of a hundred miles. With its head and neck driven completely through the aluminium side of the basket was a large eagle. The huge bird had struck the suspended basket such a tremendous blow that the impact had wrenched away the metal clips securing it to the bottle-screws.

"Standin' an' looking at the blessed thing won't clear away this raffle," said the Old Man with asperity. "Set to, all hands. Secure and belay all you can and cut the rest adrift."

"Heave this lot overboard, Abe?" questioned the mate, kicking the basket with his sea-boot.

"Best let 'un stop awhile," decided the skipper. "Pa.s.s a las.h.i.+ng round it. Be sharp with that topmast, or it'll stove us in."

Quickly the mate and a couple of hands cut away the rigging that held the topmast alongside. The heavy spar, which had been b.u.mping heavily against the side, fell clear. The _Myrtle_, no longer impeded by the trailing wreckage, forged rapidly through the water, although she was now carrying foresail, staysail, and outer jib only.

By this time day had broken. The snow had ceased falling, and right ahead the pale sun shone in a grey, misty sky.

The crew, having made all s.h.i.+p-shape as far as lay in their power, were curiously regarding the cause of the catastrophe. They rather looked upon it as a diversion to break the monotony.

"There's a log of sorts, sir," exclaimed one of the men, fumbling with the leather straps that secured the unused petrol bomb. The missile had been badly dented, but luckily the safety cap was intact. Had it not been so, the bomb would have ignited on impact, and the _Myrtle_, her snow-swept deck notwithstanding, would soon have been enveloped in flames from stem to stern.

"Don't fool around with it, Ted," said another of the crew, who, an R.N.R. man, had seen life and death in the Great War. "It's a bomb."

"Well," observed Captain Prout, "that's more'n I bargained for. I've taken my chances with floating mines, but it's coming too much of a good thing when these airmen blokes start chucking bombs haphazard-like."

"Best pitch the thing overboard," suggested the mate.

"No," objected the Old Man. "If we do, we've no evidence. Someone's got to pay for this lash up. Government broad arrow on the thing, too.

That fixes it. When we make Hobart I'll raise Cain or my name's not Abraham Prout."

CHAPTER XVIII--UNDER FIRE

"It's going to be a close race, Kenyon," remarked Fosterd.y.k.e, as Z64 crossed the "Golden Hind's" bows at a distance of less than a mile.