A Daring Venture
"I have it!" he exclaimed. "A way that two of us can win free with--and
maybe all! A chance out of millions, with death at the end of it,
maybe, but a chance to get Connell and his secret back!"
"But how?" I questioned. "How can two of us, even, get clear of this
cell?"
"The guards!" he exclaimed excitedly. "The two guards that bring our
food each dawn and dusk--if we can overpower them--"
"It's useless, Hilliard," I said. "Even if we did overpower them we
could not pass the score of other guards in the corridor outside, or
the scores of others on its lower floors."
"But listen," he appealed, and then, as he went on to detail to us the
plan that he had devised, I felt some slight measure of hope rising
within me, saw that dawning hope reflected in the faces of Connell and
Macklin.
"It _is_ a chance!" he exclaimed. "And if we can do it, if I can
get back to our own land, it means a chance still for the American
Federation! For the European and Asiatic Federations won't be starting
their attack for another ten days or more, their preparations not
finished till then, and in that time by bending every effort toward it
our own engineers could put the new tube-propellers in all our American
air-cities! Could make those cities able to meet the enemy cities,
attack when it comes!"
So, with that foremost in mind, we swiftly decided that upon that very
evening, when our guards brought our food at dusk, we would put the
plan into operation, would stake everything upon it. For even if but
two of us could escape by it, if Connell could be one of those two,
and could get back across the Atlantic with his tremendous secret, it
meant a fighting-chance for our Federation. And with that in mind the
rest of us were willing to take all chances, to dare all risks. Risky
enough the thing would be, we knew, all depending upon what occurred in
one moment of rushing action, and numberless were the features of it
that might go entirely wrong and ruin us. But we steeled ourselves with
the thought of what would become of our Federation if we failed. And so
ready and tense with resolution we waited for the coming of dusk.
To me, through the remaining hours of that day, it seemed that never
had the sun sunk westward so slowly. From our window we could see all
the activities that went on in the great air-city about us, could see
far across all this great mass of towers and streets and thronging
crowds which hung here miles in the air above the earth, and could see
those activities lessening somewhat as the long shadows of sunset fell
across narrow streets and smooth plazas. In the great plaza beneath,
at the foot of that electrostatic tower in which we were imprisoned,
there rested always a number of great cruisers of the European fleet,
reporting to the First Air Chief there in the tower's base, and now
with the approach of night other cruisers from the swarming masses
above the city were slanting down to rest upon the plaza. And these
cruisers we watched with intent gaze as the sunset's light declined.
Outside in the corridor we could hear the occasional movement of feet
as the score of guards there moved about now and then, but heard not
the approaching feet of the two that brought our food. What if they
were not to come upon this evening? Or what if more than two, or less
than two, were to come? Either contingency would be equally ruinous to
our plan, and with the passing of each moment we sat in an increasing
agony of expectation, Connell's eyes burning, Macklin as imperturbable
as ever, Hilliard eager and tense. Then at last, when the shadows
of dusk were falling across the great city of the air outside, were
deepening in our little cell, we heard voices outside, the greetings
of our guards in the corridor, and then a moment later the solid metal
door of our cell had clicked open. Then into the cell stepped our two
usual guards with our food, their heat-pistols ready as always in their
right hands.
The eyes of one warily upon us, the other took both of the metal
containers of synthetic food and reached to place them, as usual,
upon the lower bunk-rack, at the room's right hand side. Macklin was
lying upon that bunk-rack having stretched himself out as though
sleeping. The rest of us were lounging at the cell's other side, the
second guard's heat-pistol watchfully upon us while the first reached
toward the bunk-rack to place the metal food-containers beside the
supposedly-sleeping Macklin's head. But as he placed them there, as he
began to turn away from it, Macklin's hands shot suddenly behind his
head as he lay there and grasped the arm of the first guard in a single
movement, jerking him toward the bunk-rack! Like lightning the second
guard turned with his pistol toward that sudden movement and as he did
so, forgetful for the instant of the rest of us, we three had leaped
upon him! And then as Hilliard and I bore the second guard to the
floor, wrenching the pistol from him, Macklin and Connell had jammed
the first one against the cell's corner, with hand upon his mouth, and
had him equally powerless!
The whole swift scene of action had taken but a flashing moment to
carry out, and so lightning-like had been our movements, so careful
above all had we been to gag with our hands the two guards as we
grasped them, that no single sound save for a few low-choking gasps had
come from them. And then, while with hands over their mouths and with
all the strength of our muscles Hilliard and I held the two guards,
Macklin and Connell were swiftly stripping their tight-jacketed green
uniforms from them.
A moment more, and Connell and Macklin were swiftly doffing their own
black uniforms of the American Federation and donning the green ones.
Now came a restless movement of feet in the corridor without, and with
the speed of utter necessity we took the two discarded black uniforms
and forced them upon the two guards, holding them still voiceless and
powerless. Then, that done, the two guards were as like in their black
uniforms as Hilliard and myself; with Connell and Macklin, the latter
having been chosen because of the similarity of his appearance to one
of the guards, wearing now the guards' green uniforms. And now the very
climax of our endeavor was come, that moment upon which depended all,
for now, suddenly removing our hands from the lips of the two guards we
held, we added our own sudden cries to theirs, and at the same moment
Connell and Macklin, in their green uniforms, were engaging in a mock
struggle with us and with our guards, whose din seemed terrific there
in the quiet upper levels of the great tower!
Instantly as those cries arose there was a rush of feet outside and the
score of guards there poured down the corridor and through the cell's
door, to see four of us in black uniforms struggling apparently with
two green-uniformed guards, who were in reality Connell and Macklin.
It was the moment upon which all rested, and in that moment the score
of guards acted as Hilliard had foreseen, gazing not in that wild
moment of frenzied action at faces but at uniforms, seeing only in that
first moment in the dusky cell four black-garbed men struggling with
two green-garbed ones they had seen enter it but moments before. And,
seeing this, they rushed upon us four black-uniformed ones, Hilliard
and myself and the guards whom in the guise of aiding in the struggle
we had held, and began to beat us back against the cell's end, totally
forgetting in that moment the two green-uniformed men they were
succoring! And in that moment, as they pressed us back, Connell and
Macklin were stealing swiftly out of the cell, and down the corridor
toward the hall of the cage-lifts!
For but a moment more did we struggle with our outnumbering opponents
there, and then as they gripped and held the four of us helpless and
jerked our heads up wild cries came from them as they saw the faces of
us, saw that two of us were their own guards! Then the next moment,
needing no other explanation of what had happened, they turned with
their own black-garbed fellows, rushed out of the cell, slamming shut
its door behind them, down the corridor and toward the cage-lifts
after Connell and Macklin! We heard those cries re-echoed swiftly over
all the mighty building, heard rushing feet and repeated calls on the
levels of the great tower above and beneath us. And then, as we flung
ourselves to our window, gazed downward, we saw in the next moment two
green-garbed tiny figures issuing from the giant electrostatic tower's
base far beneath us, running across the great plaza toward the nearest
of the cruisers. They were Connell and Macklin!
I cried out with Hilliard hoarse words of encouragement, forgetful
that none could hear from our terrific height, saw Connell and Macklin
rushing up the slender gangplank in the cruiser's side and through
its open door, saw that door slam shut behind them, just as from the
base of the tower there poured out after them a flood of pursuing
green-garbed figures. Those pursuers were raising their heat-pistols,
and a hail of shining heat-cartridges were flying through the air
toward the cruiser in the next moment, but as they shot toward it
there came faintly up to us the droning of the ship's great motors
and then with all the power of those motors in its vertical lifting
tube-propellers it was rising upward, was lifting smoothly and swiftly
upward toward us! And at the same moment the green-uniformed crowd of
guards beneath were rushing across the plaza toward the other resting
cruisers, were rushing within them to soar up after Connell and Macklin!
Up toward us shot the lifting cruiser of our two friends, though, up
toward our little window, for such had been our plan by which two,
escaping, might rescue the remaining two. But as it shot upward I
looked down, saw beneath the scores of cruisers on the plaza rising
now after it, heard through all the great tower and for far around it
a great roar of rising shouts as the escape was discovered, saw the
giant gleaming muzzles of the great batteries of heat-guns around the
plaza turning swiftly upward on their pivots toward the rising cruiser
of Connell and Macklin! And so the next moment as that cruiser shot
up toward us, as I made out Macklin plain in its transparent-windowed
bridge-room, driving it up toward us, I flung an arm outward from the
tower to him, shouting in frenzied appeal.
"Back, Macklin!" I cried, with Hilliard crying too beside me. "No time
to get us--_back home with Connell, for God's sake_!"
He saw my frenzied gesture westward, caught the meaning of my wild
warning shout as the guns beneath swung toward him and the cruisers
below rushed up, and I saw him hang there for a fraction of a moment
irresolute, hesitating. Then the next moment, just as there came a
swift-spreading thunder of detonations from the great heat-guns around
the plaza he had whirled the wheel over and sent the great cruiser
rushing away from the tower, sent it rushing westward through the dusk
above the great air-city's gathered lights. In the next instant there
shot through the air where it had been the shining heat-shells from
beneath! And then as Macklin's cruiser rushed comet-like onward through
the dusk the great heat-guns beneath were turning again toward it.
I cried out hoarsely as they thundered again, but with a whirl sidewise
Macklin and Connell had evaded the rushing shells and were hurtling
on. Now over all the great air-city, over all the mighty mass of
Berlin was spreading a roar of alarm, and now the cruisers that had
rushed up in pursuit were rocketing westward after that single fleeing
one, the batteries beneath us holding their fire lest they strike
their own pursuing ships. With our hearts pounding Hilliard and I saw
that single little cruiser leap on, saw it shooting through the dusk
until its gleaming shape was now far away from the great air-city,
racing westward! Swiftly, though, the numberless pursuing cruisers
were converging upon it, and then, as we strained our eyes to see the
flying gleaming craft, there came a greater thundering of guns as all
the suddenly-alarmed batteries at the air-city's westward edge loosed
their shells upon the fleeing cruiser! That cruiser seemed to halt for
a moment unaccountably, there was a great blinding flare that could be
made only by heat-shells striking, and then the cruiser, the cruiser
that held Macklin and Connell and all the American Federation's fate,
was reeling blindly downward and out of sight, whirling lifelessly
downward toward the earth far below!