“ALL OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT.”
Nat staggered toward the door of the pilot-house. Mr. Tubbs, at the
wheel, the least affected of the adventurers, turned his head.
“What are you doing to do?” he demanded.
“Get that valve open,” was the brief reply.
“Boy, you are crazy!”
“Maybe, but I’m going to make a try for it, anyhow. All our lives
depend upon it.”
“By hooky, if it’s to be done, you’ll do it, and if not, why then, I
guess we’ll have to meet death as bravely as we can,” was Mr. Tubbs’
muttered remark, as Nat plunged out of the door.
In the cabin Ding-dong, breathing hard, lay on a narrow bunk. Matco was
stretched on the floor, apparently unconscious. Nat gazed at them half
stupidly.
“Pretty far gone,” was the thought that came into his dazed mind. Then
he plunged on again, reeling as he went, his mind concentrated with
bitter intensity on the task that lay before him. Gaining the deck, he
found the cold almost too much for him, and he turned back for an
instant and donned warmer clothing from the professor’s chest.
Then he doggedly proceeded with his self-imposed task. He noticed that
the engine had stopped. The bitter cold had condensed the moisture
within it and frozen the lubricating oil.
But Nat wasted no time on these observations. What he had to do must be
done quickly if at all.
Gazing upward at the huge bulging curve of the under side of the gas
bag, he saw the broken ends of the valve cord fluttering from the bag.
They were far above his reach, even if the securing of them would have
done him any good.
It was only for an instant that he paused. Then, summoning up every
ounce of resolution in his determined mind, he seized hold of the
starboard rigging and began clambering up and outward.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Nat climbed by sheer force of will power.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He did not dare to look down into the awful void beneath him—vast and
empty as eternity itself. Keeping his eyes steadily fixed on the
bulging bag, Nat climbed by sheer force of will power till he was up to
the network that encased the bag.
Right here began the most difficult and terrifying part of his task.
Hanging desperately above the immensity beneath him, he had to make his
way to the upper part of the bag. He did not dare to think of what he
was doing. The very notion of it made him feel sick and dizzy. The lad
just climbed, fixing his mind on the thought of reaching and opening
the valve.
Somehow—to this day Nat couldn’t tell you how—he clambered round under
the bulge of the bag and began the easier task of making his way up the
tightly rounded sides to the top of the great cylindrical gas
container. As the professor had surmised, ice had formed on the outside
of the bag, and made Nat’s endeavor ten times more hazardous and
difficult. This ice had clogged the valve ropes, and Nat saw that the
only thing to do was, as he had made up his mind, to climb on till he
reached the top of the bag.
The possibilities of a slip were awful, and Nat no more dared think
about them than he had about the chances of his slipping when he was
hanging between earth and sky under the lower part of the bag. He
resolutely dismissed them from his mind.
But the physical difficulties of the lad’s self-imposed task were
almost overwhelming. There was a sharp pain in his chest, and his limbs
felt as if they had leaden weights attached to them. Suddenly a warm
stream of something Nat knew to be blood, gushed from his nose; but
still he worked his way upward, climbing amidst the network meshes like
a sailor on ratlines.
Once or twice he was compelled to pause from sheer exhaustion, and,
clinging on with might and main, to spread himself flat on the surface
of the gas bag to rest.
If Nat had not been a clean-lived lad all his life, and had not been a
hater of smoking and bad company, he would never have been able to
endure this ordeal; but somehow, his young vitality won out, and at
last he could reach out a hand and touch the valve.
Bracing himself against the rigging, he tugged with all his might. But
the condensed moisture had formed ice on the valve, and it stuck.
Nat felt a childish rage take possession of him. Raising his fists, he
beat and tore at the valve, while tears of physical weakness and
exhaustion streamed down his cheeks.
“I will get you open! I will! I will!” he cried again and again.
But even his frame gave way at last, and suddenly his eyes grew dim and
he felt as if a sword had been plunged through and through him.
As everything grew black, Nat, with a last effort of consciousness,
clutched at something to save himself from being plunged backward into
space.
He caught it, or thought he did, and then his senses went out from him
with a vivid flash and a terrible roaring in his ears like the sound of
a hundred waterfalls.
* * * * *
Half an hour later, or at ten o’clock, Joe Hartley opened his eyes. At
first he hardly knew what had befallen him; but in a few seconds his
recollection came back with a rush. He remembered that the _Discoverer_
had seemed doomed, recalled Nat’s plunge through the door and how he
had tried to follow his chum, but had fallen, overcome by exhaustion,
at the door.
But now all the chill was out of the air, bright sunlight streamed
through the pilot-house ports, and the professor and Mr. Tubbs, both of
whom had collapsed on the floor, were sitting up looking about them
rather bewilderedly. The professor was the first to speak.
“A miracle has happened,” he declared. “The _Discoverer_ is out of
danger.”
“The barograph shows twenty-five hundred feet,” announced Joe, who had
been studying that instrument.
“Where are the others?” asked Mr. Tubbs, rising rather weakly to his
feet.
As if in answer to his question, Ding-dong Bell appeared in the doorway
between the pilot-house and the main cabin.
“Where’s Nat?” he demanded.
“Isn’t he out there with you?” asked Joe, with a quick leap of his
heart.
“No. The only person out there is Matco. He’s so scared that he’s under
the ber-ber-bunk.”
“Where is the lad?” demanded the professor earnestly, with a note of
anxiety in his voice.
Mr. Tubbs, who had been struggling with his dim memory of events
preceding his collapse, spoke:
“I recall it now,” he said. “Nat said he was going to get that valve
open”—he paused—“somehow.”
“And you let him go?” demanded the professor.
“I—I didn’t mean to,” stammered the repentant Mr. Tubbs, “but I was so
nearly on the verge of caving in, that I couldn’t carry out my resolve.”
“Search the craft thoroughly,” ordered the professor, lines of anxiety
showing in his face, “there was only one way to open that valve.”
They looked their questions.
“And that was by climbing around the gas bag and opening it by hand.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Joe. “And Nat dared do such a thing!”
“He must have, and succeeded, too,” said the professor in a curiously
tense voice, “the opening of that valve was the only thing that would
result in our having dropped to a supportable region of the air.”
“But we are dropping no longer.”
The exclamation came from Mr. Tubbs.
“No. The automatic cut-off arrangement would have closed the valve when
we had reached a warmer belt of atmosphere,” explained the professor,
“but don’t let us lose time talking here. Scatter through the
_Discoverer_ and make a thorough search. He may have dropped
unconscious somewhere.”
The anxiety with which the search was conducted may be imagined. The
_Discoverer_ was allowed to drift lazily along while they sought some
trace of the missing lad, but the search resulted in nothing.
“There is only one conclusion to be reached,” said the professor in a
solemn voice, “poor Nat paid the penalty of his bravery with his life.
He——”
The man of science broke off, unable to command his voice, and at the
same instant came a cry from above them—a hail from out of the air, it
seemed:
“Hello, people!”
“Good heavens! It’s Nat!” fairly shouted the professor, as Nat, whose
feet were alone visible round the bulge of the gas bag, clambered
nimbly down and dropped from the rigging, beside them.
In his excess of joy, the professor flung his arms around Nat’s neck,
much to the lad’s embarrassment, while the rest fairly fought for a
chance to grasp his hand. In intervals of joy making, Nat told his
story, part of which we are familiar with.
It seemed that when he swooned on the swaying balloon top he
instinctively clutched at the first thing his hand encountered, which
was one of the valve ropes. The valve, already loosened by his pounding
on it, yielded to the sudden pressure upon it and jerked open. At
least, this was the only explanation Nat could furnish of the fortunate
occurrence.
When he came to himself he said he saw that the _Discoverer_ was at a
reasonable height, and manipulating the cords he again closed the
valve. He was too weak to attempt the descent at once, but lay
outstretched on the top of the gas bag, regaining his strength. All
this time he suffered with a dreadful fear that his friends below might
have succumbed to the awful rigors of the upper air. With an
apprehensive heart he at last began the climb down and he concluded:
“You may imagine how delighted I was to hear your voices, even if the
professor was preaching my funeral sermon.”
The boys broke out into wild yells of enthusiasm.
“Three cheers for Nat Trevor, the bravest boy on earth!” shouted Joe
Hartley.
The shouts rang out oddly in the thin atmosphere of mid-air, but they
relieved the boys’ feelings. As they died out, Matco appeared at the
door of the cabin, and gazed at the scene a moment. Then seeing that
Nat was the idol of the moment the Indian ran nimbly along the swaying
deck and throwing himself on his knees, placed Nat’s foot on his head.
It was the last straw.
“Say, fellows!” cried Nat with a red face, “that’s about all of this
hero business. Let’s have some breakfast and get the engine going.”
And so, what might have been a tragedy, ended in one of the merriest
meals ever enjoyed by aerial travelers.
By noon the _Discoverer_, none the worse for her involuntary flight
into the icy realms of space, was able to resume her voyage over the
desolate peaks and abysses of unknown depths, above which the
adventurers were now soaring.