The Great Airship Part 30

"While I'm in a horrible perspiration," confessed Alec, mopping his brow. Then he seemed to see some fun in the matter, and grinned at his comrade.

"All the same it was a good lesson for Mr. Reitberg," he cried. "Odious toad that he is. He didn't know that the bombs were empty, now, did he?

He didn't look like it. That's why he funked. That's why he went under."

Mr. Andrew rose from his chair, and took each of the lads in turn by the hand.

"We owe you many apologies," he said earnestly. "I can't forgive myself for what has happened. But there are excuses. I did not know, Joe was kept in ignorance, even the Major and the Commander knew nothing of this matter till the very beginning of dinner. Then Sergeant Evans told us.

We owe our safety to him, to his watchfulness--though I know you also have watched--to his cleverness, and to the experience he had in South Africa. There! I am sorry. But it was fine to see the manner in which you two behaved."

"Magnificent!" declared the Major.

"I shall report it," cried the Commander, gripping d.i.c.k's hand. "A fine example of the spirit which all naval men should show. Alec, shake hands."

"Now, tell us the whole tale, Sergeant Evans," demanded Joe, while d.i.c.k and Alec, now completely mollified, took their places at the table.

Indeed, dinner proceeded much as usual, but for the fact that the Sergeant, while attending upon the diners, told them his tale crisply and shortly.

"I knew him, this Mr. Carl Reitberg," he began in the politest tones. In fact, you would not have imagined that he had any other but the highest opinion of the individual to whom he referred. Certainly his tones showed no trace of satire, of disgust, or even of anger.

"His name was different out in the Transvaal," he proceeded. "He was a suspected person, and as such came under the notice of the police, that is, the civil police. He was supposed to be an I.D.B., otherwise an illicit diamond buyer. But he was more. We military police suspected him of dealings with the Boers. We watched him, and he escaped, and left the country. It was natural, then, that I should suspect him when I found him here under another name. I watched him, gentlemen, watched him through a peephole cut in the wall of his cabin, which is next the pantry. He had a box with him, a suspicious box, filled with valuables as he said. I investigated the contents of that box."

"But, pardon for the interruption, Sergeant. That box was sealed,"

remarked Mr. Andrew, with a lift of his white eyebrows.

"Yes, sir--sealed. Red sealing wax, impressed with a seal hanging to the man's watch chain. I borrowed that seal one day. I opened the box, investigated the contents, removed the explosives, leaving everything else as it was, sealed the box again and returned it to its old position. No one was the wiser. Even Mr. Reitberg was unsuspicious when he opened the box this evening. He imagined he still had dangerous bombs, whereas I knew that they had already served their purpose."

"Served their purpose? How?" demanded Joe quickly.

"You remember the Pathans, sir? Well, Mr. Reitberg's bombs stopped their rush, and came in very handy."

The tale proved, if it had proved nothing else, that in Sergeant Evans the airs.h.i.+p possessed a trusty and astute man. But it also proved to the hilt the rascality of Carl Reitberg.

"Of course," said Mr. Andrew, when the warm thanks of the gathering had been given to the Sergeant, "of course, we take no action. The ruffian is not worth powder and shot; his meanness will bring about its own punishment. When he recovers we will let him go, thankful that we are well quit of him."

It followed that late that night, he having then recovered consciousness, a gharri conveyed the disconsolate Carl to the railway station, where he took train for Bombay. But it must not be imagined that the man took with him any feelings of grat.i.tude to those who had so handsomely dealt with him. No. They had made a fool of him. He realized now that the bombs before which he had been forced to sit, and which he had expected to shatter him to fragments in a few seconds, he realized that they had been rendered harmless. All his fears and terrors, all his squirming, the terrible exhibition he had made of himself were to no purpose. He had been fooled. The very people he had imagined to be so stupidly wanting in astuteness, who had failed to suspect him, had defeated his dastardly attempt with surprising ease. It made the magnate boil with rage and mortification. He fanned his heated brow as the train sped onward, set his crooked teeth and swore beneath his breath.

"Ah!" he grunted. "Made a fool of me. Know now that I am not the sportsman they imagined. Fancy themselves safe, and are sure of winning that wager. We'll see. There is still time. There is still Adolf Fruhmann."

Yes, there was still that unmitigated rascal, ready to attempt anything if sufficiently well paid. He was the man to come now to Carl's rescue.

He was the one who must now attempt the wrecking of the airs.h.i.+p. But how?

"I'll wire to him to meet me at Suez," Carl decided before he reached Bombay. "He'll be able to propose a scheme. Yes, there's time still. If I have failed, Adolf will manage to succeed. We'll show the folks aboard the airs.h.i.+p who's best man in this matter."

Burning with anger at his defeat, and his vindictiveness increased almost in proportion to the distance he was steadily placing between himself and the great airs.h.i.+p, Carl Reitberg boarded the steamer at Bombay in no enviable frame of mind. Indeed, what with the heat and his own stoutness he narrowly escaped an attack of apoplexy, and lay for some days in his cabin, his head swathed in bandages wrung out of iced water, a huge wind shute pouring the little fresh air there was into the compartment, while an electric fan shot eddies at his perspiring person.

Indeed, to the average individual it was an uncomfortable season during which to visit the neighbourhood of Bombay. To Carl Reitberg, the pompous, fat, and rascally magnate swelling with indignation, hate, and all uncharitableness, it was a positive nightmare.

In this uncomfortable condition, then, we can leave him to his own devices, with the knowledge that, though he had failed once in his dastardly effort to wreck Joe Gresson's invention, he had by no means given up all hope of achieving success. For Joe and his friends, we can say that they gave scarcely another thought to their late guest, who had abused their kindness so disgracefully.

"It's a black page in the history of our trip," said Andrew, the morning following. "We will turn it over and seal it down. Ugly things are better as a rule when shut out of view. And now, Mr. Skipper?"

"Now, Joe?" cried the Commander. "We await orders. Do we remain here cooking in the neighbourhood of Delhi? Or do we seek a more balmy clime, where a man may sleep peacefully in his cabin, and must not necessarily spend the baking night restlessly pacing the open deck above dressed only in his pyjamas?"

"Yes--what next?" demanded d.i.c.k, his mouth still busy with the breakfast he was devouring. But what recked d.i.c.ky of heat? Mr. Mids.h.i.+pman Hamshaw carried an appet.i.te wherever he went, and his breakfast this morning showed that heat hardly affected him. He was not even limp, whereas the Major, hardened soldier that he was, and accustomed to India, was as flabby as a wet rag.

"Which comes of modern invention," he laughed. "Send me to India in the cold weather, and leave me in the plains when the heat comes. I'll not turn a hair, for I've had time to become acclimatized. But set out from London as we have done on this new-fangled machine--apologies, Joe and Mr. Andrew--set out, I say, on this airs.h.i.+p and plunge me suddenly from the heights, where one needs a fur coat, to the plains about Delhi in the hot weather, and I admit I become a limp, nerveless individual."

"While I for another shall be glad to move on," Joe admitted. "Well, now; we take in stores here--they are coming aboard already--then, following the plan agreed upon, we sail along over the all-red route.

Naturally, this trip is not a true tour of the world, for then we should take a straight line, the shortest route possible. We are purposely lengthening our journey, and should we successfully complete it, we shall have flown many more miles than the twenty-five odd thousand which circ.u.mvent the globe. So our course lies east, parallel almost to the Himalaya mountains."

"Ah! A test of elevation, perhaps," suggested the Commander. "You could cross the Himalayas."

"Why not?"

"At their highest point?"

"I have reason to believe so," said Joe, with the quiet a.s.surance of the inventor who has the utmost faith in the powers of the machine he has constructed. "Why not?"

"Because--well, because Mount Everest happens to be the highest peak,"

replied the Commander dryly. "Let's see; what is its exact alt.i.tude?

Here, d.i.c.k, one of you youngsters, let us have the figure."

"Sorry, sir; can't. Forgotten--so long since I left school," answered the imperturbable d.i.c.k. "Ask Alec, he's the latest kid to leave."

He accompanied his remarks with a grin in his friend's direction, which became the broader as Alec shook his fist at him.

"Well, Alec? d.i.c.k's a dunce; he's like most middies," said the Commander.

And for a wonder Alec was able to supply the information.

"Twenty-nine thousand and two feet high, sir," he told them. "Highest mountain in the world. Cold as Christmas up at the top. Haven't been there myself, you know, but I'm guessing."

"In fact, rather more uncomfortable there than down here," laughed the Major. "Well, Joe, it's a stumper?"

"I cannot say. To cross above the highest peak we must ascend some five miles. That is a tremendous height; it will need special preparation."

But one could see that Joe was bitten with the idea of accomplis.h.i.+ng that which no other person or machine had ever achieved before. He went to the engine-room forthwith, and for the next two hours closely inspected the gasometer and carburettor which supplied his engines. Then he took the temperature of the crude paraffin which, unlike other internal-combustion motors, not only formed the explosive charge, and conveyed power through those long, sinuous, cold-drawn steel pipes to the distant hydraulic motors, but also surrounded the cylinders, acting as an effective cooling agent. If one had watched him one would have seen the thoughtful Joe working out some pleasant little calculations, calculations which would have given d.i.c.ky Hamshaw quite a headache. But the result seemed to satisfy him, for he once more inspected his engines, made a small adjustment, and then went off to the saloon.

"Gentlemen," he said solemnly, "we have loaded our stores. If all are ready we will make for Mount Everest and there test the powers of this vessel."

It was one of the many advantages of being aboard an airs.h.i.+p. There was no packing to be done, no cabs to call, no trains to be entered. Joe had merely to return to the engine-room and start his motors, so that within ten minutes the s.h.i.+p was off, followed by the cheers and shrill native cries of thousands. For a while she hovered over the city of Delhi, mounting and mounting steadily, till she was but a speck in the sky, a speck almost invisible because of the material of which she was constructed. It was an object lesson to many thousands also. For where in all India, in all the world, was there a gun capable of reaching her, of destroying the airs.h.i.+p, of preventing her crew, had they so wished, from dropping bombs upon the citizens of Delhi?

"In war, an invincible arm," declared the Major with conviction. "A terrible arm, indeed, for here is a s.h.i.+p as secure, as handy, as manageable as any steamer. Let us hope that the report we shall take to War Office and Admiralty will not fall upon deaf ears. Or rather, let us pray that the authorities will test the truth of our statements by sending men aboard who are really qualified to form an opinion. Not amateurs, more or less filled with a sense of their own importance, and forgetful of that of others."

To those stepping the upper deck of the airs.h.i.+p the view beneath was one of the greatest magnificence, for the brilliance of the sun brought objects beneath into unusual prominence. Then, too, owing to the elevation at which the vessel now floated, the heat of the day was no longer felt.

"Just like an English summer," Andrew murmured. "And the height, Joe?"

"Seven thousand feet or thereabouts; not a quarter the height to which we shall have to climb before crossing Mount Everest. For the moment I am satisfied. Now we will descend a little, for it will be cold when we begin to travel through the air. To-morrow, at about this hour, we shall have failed miserably or have added another honour to those already won by this s.h.i.+p. Don't think me boastful. I speak of things as they are, precisely as you have found them. I ask for nothing better than honest tests. Here is one. I shall strive to win in this encounter."

"But one moment," said the Major. "Excuse my ignorance. Mount Everest is twenty-nine thousand and two feet in height. Let us say that we must ascend to the enormous height of thirty thousand feet. Will that, then, prove a record? Is there a person who has before this date attained to such an alt.i.tude?"