OFF AT LAST!
The frame of the Electric Monarch thrilled to the first impulse of her
powerful motors. But that thrill was nothing to the sense of suppressed
excitement that ran through the boys’ veins as Jack, with throbbing
pulses, set the lever that sent the electric current into the driving
machinery.
Outwardly calm, every person on board stood at his station waiting
the word for the start. Tom Jesson was in the bow, Joyce, oil can in
hand, was at the stern. Ned Nevins, pale but keeping a firm grip on his
nerves, stood by the motors. His “big moment” had come at last. The
dream of Jeptha Nevins was to be put to the test.
Heiny Dill had had a special office created for him at the last moment.
He was, in addition to his self-conferred title of mascot, the “chief
cook and bottle washer”--in other words, the steward of the Electric
Monarch. He felt the responsibilities of his office to the full as he
stood with his rotund face stuck out of the port cabin window waiting
for the start. He already had the electric stove going and a big kettle
of boiling water on it. Just why, he could not have said, but he felt
that it was in line with his responsible position to be doing something.
“Hold tight, everybody. We’re going up!”
The shout from the pilot house was like a bugle call. Each boy
involuntarily straightened up at his post. The propellers beat the air
faster and faster. On the “bridge deck” the boys held tightly to their
caps. It was like being in a hurricane. The mighty power of the motors
made a roaring noise, like the voice of a cataract. The craft shook
from stem to stern like a live thing struggling against captivity.
Suddenly there came a jerk and a yell from Heiny as, amidst a crashing
of pots and pans, he was flung to the floor. On the “bridge deck” the
crew hung on tight. Their faces showed the tense strain as Jack applied
full power.
Off like an arrow from a bow shot the great craft across the smooth
slope leading down to the lake. The speed was terrific. The craft
pitched and swayed so that it was only by holding on for dear life that
the boys could keep their feet.
“Ledt me oudt! Ledt me oudt!” shrieked Heiny, from amidst the wreckage
of his cooking utensils. “I don’d vant to be a mashed shot!”
“Gracious, if we don’t rise in a second we’ll be in the lake!” cried
Tom in dismay, but above the roaring of the motors and propellers no
one heard him. But the same thought was in the minds of all. Ned, white
as ashes, peered straight ahead as the massive craft dashed down the
hill. Were all their hopes doomed to disaster, after all?
In the pilot house Jack saw the impending disaster. He threw his
entire weight against the lever that set the wings at a rising
inclination. The device was new and stiff. His most strenuous exertions
failed to move it.
He heard a voice at his shoulder. It was Ned Nevins. He had guessed
that something was the matter and had clawed his way into the pilot
house down the pitching, swaying bridge.
“The rising lever! Quick!” he cried.
“I can’t move it. It’s stuck!” shouted back Jack.
Ned braced his foot against the sector and both boys threw the last
ounce of their strength into making the refractory bit of machinery
move. It did, with a suddenness that threw them both to the floor of
the pilot house.
But the next instant they gave a glad shout of delight which echoed
from one end of the craft to the other.
The Electric Monarch was rising, shooting straight upward toward the
blue heavens at tremendous speed!
Jack scrambled to his feet like a shot. For one instant the Electric
Monarch was shooting skyward without a guiding hand at the wheel. The
next moment her young skipper, with a firm grasp of the spokes, was
directing her course due eastward toward the ocean.
While he did this, Ned set to work with oil can and file on the lever
which had so nearly caused disaster. He soon had it fixed and had taken
to heart a lesson which had for its text, “It’s the little things that
count.”
“Gracious,” he said to Jack, as they shot straight onward at a height
the barograph showed to be 2,500 feet, “that lever came near wrecking
us.”
“Never mind that now,” was the response, “just see how splendidly she
is behaving. Ned, old boy, the Electric Monarch is a success. A bigger
success than we dared to hope.”
“She is indeed,” said Ned, almost reverentially, as he glanced down
from the pilot house window at the landscape flying by far below them.
It was his first experience in the air and he felt just a bit creepy
and scared.
But that feeling soon wore off, and before a glittering expanse of
water in the distance showed them that the ocean lay before them, Ned
Nevins, the virtual owner of the Electric Monarch, was at work on the
motors, oiling and adjusting as if he had been an engineer of a flying
ship all his life.
The motion of the craft was delightfully smooth and even. If it had not
been for the furious wind of the propellers, and the roaring of the
motor, it would have been difficult to believe they were moving at all.
Yet the speed indicator showed that they had attained a velocity of
fifty miles an hour and their maximum speed had not by any means been
reached.
Jack knew that with new machinery it would have been risking
over-heated bearings and all manner of engine trouble, to let the
Electric Monarch out to her full capacity.
Jack’s cheeks glowed and his eyes shone as the craft drove onward,
with his firm hands on the controlling wheel. It was invigorating
and blood-quickening to feel the way in which the Electric Monarch
responded instantly to every move of the controlling devices.
“Of course the Electric Monarch isn’t mine, nor have I any right to any
share in her but the builder’s, and yet I can’t help feeling that we
all have a part in her,” said the boy to himself. “That Jeptha Nevins
must have been a wonder. If he had only lived, this would have been a
proud day for him. He certainly left Ned a great legacy in those plans.
I wonder----”
Jack broke off short in his ruminations. The plans! It was true they
were in the safe at High Towers, but it was also true that just the
moment before sailing they had learned that enemies were interested in
securing them. Enemies backed by powerful interests, too, judging by
what Heiny Dill had said.
A troubled look crossed Jack’s face. His father was ill. In case
intruders gained access to the library, he could make but a feeble
resistance. But the next moment he dismissed the thought as ridiculous.
How could any one know where the plans had been placed? And even so, if
an attempt was made to blow open the safe, the servants would be bound
to hear.
“Just the same,” thought the boy, “I wish we’d notified the police
before we started.”
But at that moment a wind flaw struck the Electric Monarch and Jack’s
attention was fully occupied in handling the craft as she heeled over
like a ship in a heavy sea. When she was once more on an even keel, he
had other matters to occupy his mind.