The week was filled with the bustle of preparation. The airship was
divided into sections, the motors and the framework taken to pieces, and
the whole packed into large light crates and conveyed to the coast on
country carts, their arrival at Horleston being so timed that everything
could be put on board very early in the morning. Besides the crew, the
company consisted only of Mr. Greatorex, Tom Dorrell, and Timothy Ball.
Before the vessel put off, a custom house officer came aboard, and
showed himself somewhat inquisitive as to the meaning of the strange
platform newly rigged on the after deck, and as to the nature of the
bulky packages. Mr. Greatorex explained that they contained a cooling
apparatus which he was taking out to Morocco on behalf of an
acquaintance, adding that by all accounts the country was pretty hot in
all respects. With this explanation the officer had to be content.
Clearly the parts of the airship did not come within the description of
explosives, firearms or other articles on which he might exercise his
powers of detention. Still, being by training suspicious, he was
evidently by no means satisfied, and left the yacht somewhat
unwillingly.
Steam was already up and the officer had barely left the vessel before
she put to sea.
"Just as well to be clear away before he gets his second wind," said Mr.
Greatorex with a chuckle. In his spotless white ducks and blue cap he
was enjoying himself already. "Did that uncommonly well, didn't I, Tom?"
he said. "What could be more useful than cooling apparatus when there's
a chance of getting into very hot water, eh?"
He took a run over the vessel as soon as she had made an offing. His
yacht was a hobby, and whenever he went for a cruise he liked to examine
her in the company of his officers, with whom, as with the crew, whom he
knew individually, he was very popular. In the course of his inspection
he came to the engine room.
"How do, Mr. Mumford!" he said genially to the engineer. "All in good
order, eh?"
"Tip-top, sir. This is the neatest bit of machinery I've ever had to do
with."
"Glad to hear that. I _say_, is that a new stoker I see there? What's
become of Byles?"
"His mother is very ill, sir, and he had to cry off at the last moment.
I was very lucky to get a man to fill the place."
"Ha! Looks rather _young_, doesn't he? Overgrown, perhaps. Any _good_?"
"Can't tell yet, sir. I'll let you know later on. He shapes very well.
He's a fine well-made young fellow; very willing, too. Byles said he'd
go bail for him to any amount."
"That's all right. What's his name?"
"M'Cracken, sir; Scotch, by the name. Would you like to speak to him,
sir?"
"Just a word. Like to _know_ the men, you know. Gives 'em a personal
interest in their job, I always think."
The engineer called up the new stoker, a tall young fellow in the
flannel shirt open at the neck, the loose reach-me-down, and the
black-lead coated trousers affected by his kind. His face and arms were
begrimed with black grease, and his mouth received an extra smudge as he
drew the back of his hand across it, apparently in sheepish confusion.
"You're a new man, M'Cracken," said the merchant pleasantly. "Hope
you'll get on well. Mr. Mumford won't _over-work_ you, I can answer for
that. Have you been long at this job?"
"No that lang, sir; just a wee while," the stoker replied in a somewhat
husky voice.
"Exactly. Ah! well! Good morning."
"Good mornin', sir."
And Mr. Greatorex went on deck, satisfied that he had established
excellent relations with the newest hand.
The first part of the voyage was rather stormy. The yacht, by no means a
large vessel, shipped one or two fairly heavy seas, to the no small
alarm of Tom, who was anxious lest the crates containing his machine
should be washed overboard or otherwise injured. But halfway through the
Bay the weather moderated, and by the time the yacht reached the
latitude of Lisbon both wind and sea were calm enough, he thought, for
his first experiment. It had been decided that the dusk of the evening
would be the best time for the attempt, for it was just as necessary on
sea as on land to avoid observation. If the airship were descried from
the deck of a homeward-bound vessel, the fact, and the name of the
yacht, might be marconigraphed to England, and then, as Mr. Greatorex
said, all Fleet Street would be in a buzz.
Early one morning the crates were broken open. It took the best part of
the day to piece the machine together, and Tom went over it bit by bit
several times to assure himself that everything was in order. The
airship was so placed that it could take flight over the stern of the
yacht. When dusk was falling, the vessel's engines were reversed, Tom
arranging that as soon as the airship rose from the deck the yacht
should be sent full speed ahead, to make sure that the apparatus cleared
the vessel and ran no risk of fouling the funnel.
Mr. Greatorex had shown some nervousness as the critical moment
approached. He insisted on lowering a boat in case the airship came to
grief and Tom were thrown into the sea. Timothy Ball, too, looked on
with a most woful countenance as the final preparations were made. He
had unslung a life belt, ready to slip into it and fling himself
overboard if the airship broke down.
"I feel sure in my inside it won't work," he said anxiously to Tom, as
he stepped to the car. "It'll be worse than suicide, sir."
"Why worse, Tim?" asked Mr. Greatorex.
"'Cos we're lookin' on, sir," said Tim solemnly, and felt much hurt by
the burst of laughter with which his explanation was received.
But his anxiety was a vain expenditure of energy. With the vertical
screws at full speed, and the horizontal screws half speed, the machine
rose like a huge bird from the deck, with a noise like the clattering of
hundreds of bats and the humming of innumerable bees. At the height of
sixty feet or so Tom stopped the vertical screws, and turned the full
power of his engines on to the horizontal propellers, giving to the
planes just sufficient inclination to counteract the force of gravity.
"Capital!" exclaimed Mr. Greatorex, as he watched the easy flight.
"First-rate! There's a _fortune_ in that, skipper," he said to Captain
Bodgers at his side.
"Maybe," said the Captain reflectively. He was a man of few words.
"Rather stay on deck, eh?"
"Well, you can swim in water, sir."
"Exactly. But how far is the fellow going? It's getting dark, and he'll
be out of sight directly. By the way, Bodgers, there's no law about
showing lamps on an airship. But there will be--there _will_ be. Ah! here
he comes--at a spanking pace, too. He'll overtake us in no time, going
dead slow as we are."
In less than a minute the airship had come within a little distance
astern of the yacht.
"Hallo!" came a voice from the air.
"Are you there?" answered Mr. Greatorex, from force of habit at the
telephone.
"Who are you?" came the response. "I say, Mr. Greatorex, pick up that
boat and go full speed ahead. She's going beautifully; the oiling she's
had has done her no end of good."
"All right. Aren't you coming _down_? It's getting _dark_; I can hardly
_see_ you."
"Not just yet. She goes smoother than the yacht, and it's beautifully
fresh up here. I can tell your whereabouts by your lights."
"All right. _Don't get lost!_"
Tom laughed. He laughed again when, from his elevated position, he saw
that though the boat had been hoisted on board, four men had been told
off to stand by the davits in order to lower it again at the first sign
of mishap.
The yacht was sent full speed ahead. She could easily do her eighteen
knots, but was no match in speed for the airship, which circled round
and round her.
"She beats us hollow," said Mr. Mumford to M'Cracken, as they watched
the flight from the foot of the companion.
"Ou ay, sir. Yon's a grand invention. It's wonderful."
After about an hour Tom called down that he was going to descend.
"He'd much better stay up now he's there," said Timothy, gloomily.
"He'll smash himself or us--I know he will."
Tom knew that to descend was a delicate operation, to be performed with
all caution. As his control over the airship was to a great extent
proportionate to its speed, he shouted instructions to keep the yacht
going under full steam. Coming up astern, he so adjusted his own speed
as to overtake the yacht very slowly. When the airship was level with
the stern, two men on board caught a cable hanging loose from the car.
Then Tom gradually reduced the speed of the horizontal propellers, and
started the vertical screws at half speed, keeping one hand all the time
on the lever that adjusted the angles of the planes. He handled his
appliances so dexterously that the airship, guided by the rope, sank
steadily and accurately to the deck. Buffers of india rubber were
slipped under her bottom to break the slight jar that must be inevitable
when she touched the platform. Then Tom stepped out.
"Capital!" cried Mr. Greatorex, slapping him on the back. "This is going
to turn out _all right_, my boy. What does it _feel_ like, being up
there?"
"Like a fish out of water, I should think," said Tom, laughing. "But I
thought what a helpless thing a man-of-war would be if she had to tackle
an airship. I could choose my own altitude, and drop explosives on her
deck and blow her to smithereens, and there's no gun that I know of that
could make an effective reply. They'd have to invent a rocket apparatus
for shying melinite shells aloft."
"Well, let's hope that it'll never come to that. Ours is a _cooling_
apparatus--don't you forget it!"
Tom was so well pleased with his first sea trial that day had scarcely
dawned before he was again aloft. This time he took Timothy with him. He
needed some assistance in attending to the mechanism, and now that a
first ascent had been made without mishap, the man was no longer so
nervous about it.
The airship had not been up more than half an hour, however, when Tom
signalled to the yacht that he saw a vessel on the horizon.
"Come down _at once_!" roared Mr. Greatorex through a megaphone.
Tom descended, somewhat unwillingly. Nothing would have pleased him
better than to steer directly for the vessel, and see what effect was
produced on board by the sight of this strange bird of passage hovering
above the tops. But clearly Mr. Greatorex was right, and Tom lowered the
machine deftly to the deck. As the ship was heading straight for the
yacht, the aeroplane was covered with tarpaulin.
The vessel turned out to be a cruiser flying the French colours. The
captain spoke the yacht, and asked whether anything had been seen from
its deck of an extraordinary object that appeared to have been moving
through the air.
"Answer him, Tom. I'm no good at French."
"We did see something, monsieur le capitaine," he said, "Do you know
whether Monsieur Santos-Dumont is trying his thirty-third airship?"
"I am not aware, monsieur. It may be. I saw the object very
indistinctly. It suddenly disappeared."
"Ah! I was always afraid that Monsieur Santos-Dumont would meet his
death. You French, monsieur, are such adventurous spirits! When you
reach Brest perhaps you will inquire whether he has recently made an
ascent."
"I will certainly do so, monsieur."
The vessels were now out of speaking distance. Tom explained to Mr.
Greatorex what he had said.
"Bravo! What with my cooling apparatus and your cool cheek I think we
are keeping our secret pretty well, Tom."
In order to escape further observation from passing vessels Mr.
Greatorex had the yacht's course set considerably westward of the usual
track. It was consequently another couple of days before she came into
the latitude of Rabat, the port for which she was making. Her head was
turned eastward in the direction of the coast of Morocco, and, there
being no vessels in sight, Tom again made an ascent, Timothy
accompanying him.
The coastline gradually came into view. From an altitude of more than a
hundred feet Tom saw, between him and the coast, a number of rocky
islets. Here and there the varying tints of the water indicated shoals
of sunken rocks.
"Know the coast?" he called down to Captain Bodgers.
"Ay, ay, sir," said the captain.
"There are no end of shoals."
"Know 'em all, sir; have a care you don't strike one."
Captain Bodgers laughed uproariously at his little joke, and Tom,
circling round the yacht, set the aeroplane at full speed towards the
coast. He was a considerable distance ahead when Timothy suddenly called
his attention to an object projecting above the sea-level, close to one
of the rocky islets that dotted the intervening space. It might have
escaped their attention altogether but for a certain movement Tim
fancied he discerned in it. As they drew nearer, they discovered that
what Tim had thought to be a single object was in reality two, which
appeared to be the broken-off stumps of two masts. Taking his
field-glasses in one hand--the other always grasping the steering
wheel--Tom lifted them to his eyes, got the focus, and made out that the
objects were not stumps after all, but the tops of masts, and that two
figures were clinging to them, one to each.
Tom had no doubt that the airship was approaching the scene of a wreck,
and that the two men were in distress and danger. Steering immediately
for the yacht, he came within hailing distance and through his megaphone
announced his discovery.
"We'll go to the rescue, _of course_," shouted Mr. Greatorex in reply.
The wreck was as yet invisible from the deck, but it was arranged that
the yacht should stand in as close as possible, and then send a boat to
bring off the survivors. Meanwhile Tom, setting his engine at full
speed, dashed on in the direction of the submerged vessel.
He noticed that even during the few seconds in which he had been in
communication with the yacht the situation had changed. One of the masts
was now tenantless. Presumably its occupant had been washed off or
through fatigue had dropped into the sea. But as the airship drew
rapidly nearer, it was noticed that the figure on the other mast was
bending low as if to raise something from the water. Then a head and
shoulders appeared above the surface. Clearly the man Tom had supposed
to be lost was trying to make his way to the mast to which his companion
clung.
The airship was now less than half a mile distant, and from the altitude
to which they had risen--some three hundred feet above the surface--the
occupants could see every detail in the strange drama that was being
enacted beneath them. Assisted by the figure above, the swimmer was
gradually making his way on to the mast, when suddenly a black fin
appeared above the surface a few yards off. With a convulsive movement,
the lowermost man had just succeeded in swinging himself a foot or two
up the mast when the gaping jaws of a shark passed immediately beneath
him. Tom shuddered involuntarily. The man had escaped by a few inches at
the most.
In a second the shark turned and glided beneath the clinging figure. The
terror-stricken wretch clutched wildly at the man above him, and began
to haul himself up hand over hand, clinging to his companion's body. But
the latter, unable to bear the double weight on the smooth mast, slipped
slowly downwards. He was the slighter of the two, and no match,
apparently, for the man who had usurped his place.
"What a beast!" ejaculated Tom, wondering at this strange want of
fellow-feeling in a man who was evidently older and stronger than his
companion in distress. Slowing down, he fixed his eyes on the
extraordinary spectacle. The position was now reversed. The younger and
slighter man was very manifestly the under dog. With every attempt on
his part to swarm up the mast the man above him kicked savagely, while
the shark circled below. The fact that the second mast had become
untenable seemed to indicate that the tide was rising. Neither of the
men, their whole attention fixed on the sea beneath, had noticed the
airship that was now hovering just above their heads.
When, however, Tom gradually allowed the airship to sink towards the
sea, the shark seemed to take fright, just as smaller fish are scared by
signs of movement in the air above. It left the immediate neighbourhood
of the mast, and its black fin could be seen describing a much larger
circle some two or three hundred yards away. Clearly it had not given up
hope. When the shark moved away and the strain of terror was relaxed,
the two men became suddenly aware of the presence of the airship. The
topmost man was almost as much scared by the sight of the airship as he
had been by the presence of the shark. Tom had already noticed that both
of the men were dark skinned. The larger and stronger--the brute, as Tom
mentally called him--appeared to be middle-aged; the other was a
stripling.
Tom was struck by the difference in their demeanour when they caught
sight of the airship; neither he nor Timothy was at present visible to
them. The elder man was aghast with fright, his eyes dilated, his mouth
gaped between black moustache and beard. The younger, however, seemed to
pull himself together as with renewed hope. Tom fancied that he heard a
cry from his lips.
Looking round, Tom saw that the yacht had now hove to, and the boat was
leaving her side. But his attention was again called to the wreck by a
piercing shriek. The shark, regaining confidence, had made another dash
at the mast. This time it seemed to come within an inch of the terrified
youth; indeed, from the cry that had reached his ears, Tom thought that
the poor wretch had actually been seized. But next moment he saw that
the shark had again drawn off, scared, possibly, by the cry.
There was now less of the masts above the surface. The tide was
evidently rising, and with its rise the shark would have another
opportunity of coming within snapping distance. Tom felt that it would
not again fail. It would be at least ten minutes before the boat reached
the spot; by that time the hapless lad would probably have fallen a
victim. Tom had noticed that when the shark was all but upon him, and he
made a convulsive movement upwards, he was met by a storm of kicks from
the man above, threatening to dislodge him completely from the mast and
hurl him into the very jaws of the monster.
In a moment Tom made up his mind. He ordered Timothy to let down from
the car a light grapnel carried for use in emergencies, and also for
raising anything that might be needed, without having to bring the
airship to rest on the ground. Then he allowed the machine to sink
gently until the grapnel dangled within reach of the man at the top. Tom
had no intention of helping him first; by his conduct he deserved to be
left to drown or to make a meal for the shark. But the man seemed indeed
quite incapable of movement, except when scared to frenzy by the efforts
of the youth below to regain the position from which he had been forced.
He made no attempt to clutch the grapnel dangling at his very hand. Tom
let the machine fall lower, until the grapnel came within reach of the
younger man. He showed no such hesitation. Looking along the cable, he
saw Timothy gazing down at him from the car. The sight of a human face
gave him confidence. He clutched at the grapnel, let go his hold of the
mast, and swung clear, Timothy attempting to steady the rope.
His sudden movement threatened a catastrophe. The airship was now only
about sixty feet above the sea, and before Tom, his attention partly
engaged by the efforts of the boy, could increase the speed of the
ascensional screw, the light vessel was pulled swiftly downwards. For a
moment he felt that it must inevitably be dragged into the water. The
young fellow below, still clutching desperately at the grapnel, had
actually begun to sink beneath the surface. But as soon as his weight
was supported by the water, the ascensional screw, now set by Tom
whirling at full speed, checked the downward movement, and in another
couple of seconds the airship began to rise, dragging the youth upwards.
In his excitement Tom had momentarily forgotten the shark. That
persistent creature, however, having overcome its fear of the monster of
the air, made a dash for the youth as he entered the sea. The poor
wretch had the narrowest escape of all when the shark passed just
beneath him, as, whirling round on the grapnel, he was swung clear of
the water.
Now that he was safe from the cruel jaws, the lad showed himself to be
possessed of no little agility. Hand over hand he swarmed up the cable
until he reached the lower rail of the car, which he clutched, and by
Timothy's aid he clambered over. Meanwhile Tom had steered the airship
towards the approaching boat.
"Give way with a will, men!" he shouted. "There's no time to be lost.
We've got one; the other man will be nabbed by a shark if you aren't
there pretty soon. I can see the brute's fin above the water just by the
mast."
The men spurted. As the boat approached the submerged vessel, the shark
took fright and glided swiftly away. In another half-minute the man was
taken from his precarious perch, and lifted, in a state of complete
collapse, into the boat.