"What are those blighters doing?" soliloquised Kenyon for the twentieth
time. "Are they buying the place, or are they poodle-faking? They ought
to have been back hours ago."
It was well after sunset. The "Golden Hind" had taken in stores and
provisions, and had replenished her fuel and oil tanks. An anchor watch
had been set, and having "gone the rounds" in order to satisfy himself
that everything was in order Kenneth Kenyon had gone to his cabin to
write letters that would be sent ashore when the picket-boat brought off
the skipper and Bramsdean.
A shrill blast of the voice-tube whistle made Kenyon hasten across the
long narrow cabin. There was something insistent about the summons. It
was not the discreet apologetic trill that the look-out man gave when he
wished to report some trivial incident to the officer of the watch.
"Hello!" replied Kenyon.
"We're adrift, sir," announced the man, excitedly.
Telling the look-out to call the duty-watch, Kenyon replaced the whistle
in the mouth of the voice-tube, struggled into his leather, fur-lined
coat, and hurried to the navigation-room. As he passed the various
motor-rooms he noticed that the air-mechanics of the duty-watch were
already at their posts awaiting the order to get the engines running.
Throwing open one of the windows, Kenyon looked out into the night.
There was no staggering, biting wind. Drifting with the breeze, the
airship was apparently motionless save for a gently-undulating movement,
but the merest glance served to corroborate the look-out man's words.
Already the "Golden Hind," having risen to 6000 feet and still climbing,
was well to the south'ard of Europa Point. He could see the lighthouse
on the south-western point of the peninsula of Gibraltar steadily
receding as the airship approached the African coast.
Kenyon was on the point of telegraphing for half-speed ahead when he
bethought him of the cable. More than likely, he decided, the wire rope
had parted half-way between the nose of the fuselage and the buoy.
There was danger in the comparatively light, springy wire getting foul
of the for'ard propellers. Stranded wire is apt to play hanky-panky
tricks.
"Get the cable inboard," he ordered. "Don't use the winch or you won't
get the wire to lie evenly on the reel. Haul it in by hand."
Two of the crew descended to the bow compartment, which, besides forming
a living-room for the men, contained the cable winch.
"'Get it in by 'and,' 'e said," remarked one of the men to his
companion. "Blimey! There ain't 'arf a strain on the blessed thing.
Bear a 'and, chum."
Presently one of the men returned to the navigation-room.
"Pardon, sir," he said, saluting, "but we can't haul the wire in. It's
foul of something. Shall we bring it to the winch, sir?"
"Foul of something, eh?" echoed Kenyon. "Does that mean we've hiked up
the blessed mooring-buoy? Switch on the bow searchlight, Jackson."
The order was promptly obeyed, and the rays of the 10,000 candle-power
lamp were directed vertically downwards.
Leaning well out of the open window, Kenyon peered along the glistening
length of tautened cable until parting from the converging rays of the
searchlight it vanished into space.
"Two degrees left," ordered Kenneth. "Good--at that. By Jove! What's
that? A man!"
Filled with a haunting suspicion that the suspended body might be that
of his chum Peter, Kenyon felt his heart jump into his throat; but a
second glance, as the motionless figure slowly revolved at the end of
the cable, relieved Kenneth's mind on that, score. Still, it was a
human being in dire peril.
"Heave away handsomely," continued Kenyon. "Stand by to avast heaving,"
he added.
The orders were communicated to the hands at the cable-winch. Steadily
the winch-motor clanked away until the word was passed to "'vast
heaving." The luckless individual at the end of the wire was now
dangling thirty feet below the bows of the fuselage.
It would have been useless to have hauled him up to the hawse-pipe,
because there would be no means of getting him on board. The only
practical way to reach him was by lowering a rope from a trap-door on
the underside of the chassis midway between the two hawse-pipes in the
bows.
Meanwhile Kenyon was deftly making "bowlines on the bight" at the
extremities of two three-inch manilla ropes.
"Jackson," he said, addressing the leading hand of the duty-watch, "I'm
going after that chap. Tell off a couple of men to attend to each of
the ropes. If I make a mess of things and don't get back, keep the ship
head to wind till daylight, and then make for our former mooring.
There'll be plenty of help available."
Adjusting one of the loops under his arms and another round his legs
above his knees, Kenneth slipped through the narrow trap-hatch, taking
the second rope with him. It was a weird sensation dangling in space
with about 8000 feet of empty air between him and land or sea, for by
this time the "Golden Hind" was probably over the African coast. But
soon the eerie feeling passed and Kenneth, courageous, cool-headed and
accustomed to dizzy heights, had no thought but for the work in hand.
"At that!" he shouted, when he found himself on the same level with the
man he hoped to rescue. "Take a turn."
Ten feet from him was the unconscious Enrico Jaures. The question now
was, how was that intervening space to be bridged?
Kenyon began to sway his legs after the manner of a child on a swing.
"If the rope parts, then it's a case of 'going west' with a vengeance,"
he soliloquised grimly. "Christopher! Isn't it beastly cold?"
Momentarily the pendulum-like movement increased until Kenneth was able
to grip the arm of the unconscious man. As he did so Enrico's belt,
that had hitherto prevented him from dropping into space, parted like
pack-thread.
With a jerk that nearly wrenched the rescuer's arms from their sockets,
the deadweight of the Scorp almost capsized Kenyon out of the bow-line.
As it was, he was hanging with his head lower than his feet, holding on
with a grip of iron to Jaures' arms. Thus hampered, he realised that it
was manifestly impossible to make use of the second bow-line.
"Haul up!" he shouted breathlessly.
"Heavens!" he added. "Can I do it? Can I hold on long enough?"
It was a question that required some answering. The strain on his
muscles, coupled with the effect of the unexpected jerk, the numbing
cold, and, lastly, his own position, as he hung practically head
downwards, all told against him. Even in those moments of peril he
found himself thinking he must present a ludicrous sight to the watchers
in the airship in the dazzling glare of the searchlight.
"Stick it another half a minute, sir," shouted a voice. "I'll be with
you in a brace of shakes."
Of what happened during the next thirty long drawn out seconds Kenyon
had only a hazy recollection. He was conscious of someone bawling in
his ear, "Let go, sir; I've got him all right."
Kenneth obeyed mechanically. In any case he was on the point of
relaxing his grip through sheer inability on the part of his muscles to
respond to his will. The sudden release of the man he had rescued
resulted in Kenyon regaining a normal position, and dizzy and utterly
exhausted he was hauled into safety.
Someone gave him brandy. The strong spirit revived him considerably.
"Where's the fellow?" he asked.
"Safe, sir," replied Jackson. "Shall I carry on?"
"Yes, please," said Kenneth, faintly, and with the clang of the
telegraph indicator bells and the rhythmic purr of the motors borne to
his ears he became unconscious.
Meanwhile Enrico Jaures, to all outward appearances a corpse, had been
hauled on board. One of the crew, observing Kenneth's plight, had
descended by means of another rope, and had deftly hitched the end round
the Scorp's body, climbing back hand over hand as unconcernedly as if he
had been walking upstairs in his cottage in far-off Aberdeen.
"Like handling frozen mutton," commented one of the crew as they
attended to the rescued Jaures. "Fine specimen, ain't he? An' what's
he doing with that there marline-spike, I should like to know. 'Tain't
all jonnick, if you ask me."