A NEW QUEST
Fortunately for our heroes the _Comet_ was a staunch craft, even though
built to navigate the air, and, like others of her kind, light in
construction. But the motorship had passed safely through hard blows
before, and Jerry and his chums hoped this would be no exception. Also
the boys, when the first warnings of the blow were observed, had made
everything as snug as possible. Now all they could do was to remain in
shelter and navigate their craft as best they might.
And glad indeed were they of shelter, too, for, after the first fury of
the blast had whipped the sea into foam, there came a burst of rain,
almost tropical in its volume.
“I should say it _was_ a blow!” gasped Bob, as he righted the coffee
pot. “Look at that!” he cried. “All wasted!”
“Don’t worry about that,” advised Jerry, who was having all he could do
to hold to the steering wheel, which was twisting and turning in his
hands as the wind forced the big rudder this way and that. “We’re lucky
to be as right as we are, so say nothing about losing a little coffee.”
“Well, I’m hungry!” exclaimed the stout lad who, it seemed, would not
be balked of his meal, even in a bad storm. “I’m going to make some
more,” he went on. “That is, unless you need me here, Jerry.”
“No,” panted the tall steersman. “I guess Ned and I can manage things
for a while, unless something happens. We’re going up fairly well, and
perhaps we can get above the storm.”
The _Comet_ was now under better control, and was steadily mounting
under the influence of the powerful lifting-gas, and the push of her
propellers, the elevating rudder being tilted in the proper direction.
Of course she was also headed toward the shore in order to take her
from above the dangerous water, but her progress in that direction was
not as rapid as it would have been had it not been necessary to mount
in an endeavor to rise above the gale. At least, that was what Jerry
was trying to do.
Of course the craft, as I have said, was built to navigate on the water
by means of pontoons or hydroplanes, but this could be done only on
comparatively calm surfaces. With the sea boiling and seething as it
now was, the _Comet_ would have been wrecked had she fallen into it.
“I almost wish we were in that submarine,” said Ned, as he came to
stand near Jerry, to aid him if necessary.
“Why?” called Bob from the little galley.
“Because then we wouldn’t mind the storm, no matter how hard it blew.
Don’t you remember reading that a comparatively short distance below
the surface the effect of a storm is not felt? Those fellows can sail
along, deep down under the ocean, and not even know a blow is going on
up above.”
“Well, they may be safer than we are,” exclaimed Bob, as he put on
another pot of coffee, taking care to secure it to the electric stove
so it would not spill off, “but, all the same, I don’t go in much for
submarines. They’re too likely not to come to the top when you want
them to.”
“Not the newest models,” defended Ned, who seemed to have taken a
sudden interest in the under-water boats. “They rarely have an accident
now-a-days. I’d like to take a chance in one.”
“I think I would too,” spoke Jerry, eagerly.
“Well, if you fellows go, of course I’m not going to back out,”
asserted Bob, who, to do him credit, was as full of grit, when the test
came, as either of his chums.
“Oh, I don’t know that there is any likelihood of our navigating one,”
went on Jerry. “Still, you never can tell. It’s about the only kind of
locomotion we haven’t tried yet.”
“Well, I only hope one thing,” spoke Bob, as he began to make some
sandwiches for himself and his chums, “and that is that this submarine
doesn’t try to blow up, or sink, the _Hassen_ with my uncle and cousin
on board.”
“Nonsense! There’s about as much danger of that happening as there is
of the moon falling on us,” said Jerry, with a laugh.
“I guess Bob means he doesn’t want the submarine to tackle that ship
his uncle is on until he finds out what it is that his respected
relative is bringing over,” spoke Ned.
“Or until he introduces us to his pretty cousin,” added Jerry with a
smile. “Eh, Bob?”
“Oh, you fellows make me tired. Here, take some of this grub. I’m
hungry.”
“Your usual state,” commented Ned, drily.
Perhaps my new readers may think it strange that the boys could talk
thus lightly while trying to escape from a bad storm in an airship,
but my old friends will understand of what sort of material Bob, Ned
and Jerry were made. They were used to danger--not that they courted
it, but when it came they could meet it face to face, and they seldom
allowed it to get on their nerves. And their talk, in this case, was
calculated to restore their own confidence for, in a measure, it took
their attention from the fury of the elements.
And there was fury and to spare. The wind seemed to increase in
violence every moment, and the rain, beating on the roof of the cabin,
almost drowned the sound of their voices, and hushed the hum of the
machinery and the whine of the dynamos.
It was fortunate, in a way, that the craft was not manœuvering as an
aeroplane, for the broad expanse of the wing and rudder planes would
have offered so much resistance to the wind that the _Comet_ might have
turned turtle. As it was, some of the planes had been folded back out
of the way. This was a new improvement in the boys’ craft, and one that
enabled it to be used to better advantage as a dirigible balloon.
True it was that the expanse of the gas-bags offered a large surface to
the gale, but this could not be avoided. It was absolutely necessary to
have them filled, or the ship would have plunged into the sea.
Jerry was operating to the limit the motor which whirled the great
propellers, and all the force at his command was needed to make headway
against the wind. The _Comet_ was shooting almost into the teeth of it,
which was to her disadvantage.
Holding with one hand each to the steering wheel, Jerry and Ned ate
their sandwiches and drank their coffee. The last was not easy as the
motorship plunged and swayed, spilling part of the beverage.
“But it’s fine--what I can get of it,” said Jerry.
“That’s right--and the sandwiches are bully!” exclaimed Ned. “You’re
all to the mustard, Bob!”
“Glad you like them,” responded the stout youth, evidently well pleased.
There came a sudden burst of fury in the gale, and the craft seemed to
plunge downward.
“Look out!” cried Ned, glancing toward the glass floor in the pilot
house, through which he could see the crests of the angry waves. “Look
out, Jerry!”
The tall lad gave a twist to the elevating rudder, which overcame the
downward tendency, and once more the _Comet_ was moving upward. The
rain still fell, the wind howled and roared and the lightning now began
to play about the ship, while the thunder rolled almost incessantly.
But the gallant craft held on in spite of all.
Suddenly there came a sharp, breaking sound, accompanying a brilliant
pinkish flash of light, and then came an awful roar. For a moment the
boys were almost paralyzed, and they felt a tingling as of pins and
needles all over their bodies. Their ear drums seemed burst.
“That bolt passed close to us!” yelled Ned, above the thunder-echoes.
“I should say so,” agreed Jerry. “A little bit more and it would have
struck us. Smell the sulphur!”
A pronounced odor was noticeable in the cabin.
“Look!” cried Bob, “it put the small dynamo out of business, too. It
short-circuited it!”
“That’s right!” cried Jerry, looking at one of the pieces of apparatus
used for generating the powerful lifting-gas. “But we won’t need that
now, I guess. We ought to be over land pretty soon and able to make a
landing.”
“We can’t in this wind,” said Bob, who went over to make a close
inspection of the damaged dynamo. “We’d be blown into a tree or house,
and smashed.”
“I’m going to try to get out of the path of the storm,” said Jerry,
who well understood the danger of going down to earth in this gale.
“I think its path is comparatively narrow. Is she much damaged, Bob?”
referring to the dynamo.
“No, those new fuses you put in saved her. It just burned out a couple
of them. I can connect it up if you say so. We might need it in a
hurry.”
“No, we have some gas in the reserve tank yet, and there is no use
taking chances monkeying around a dynamo in a thunder-storm. Come away
from it!”
That one terrific stroke, which had come so near to the motorship,
seemed to have broken the backbone of the storm, in a measure, and
there was a noticeable diminution in the force of the wind, while the
rain fell less heavily.
It was late afternoon, and night was coming on, so with the clouds to
add to the gloom of the sky, it was so dark that the boys could hardly
see the water below them.
A little later, when the storm showed more evidence of dying out, they
looked down and saw below them the lights of Boston.
“We’re safe!” cried Jerry. “The bay isn’t under us any more.”
“Good!” cried Bob. “Now we can have a regular supper!”
“You sure are the limit, Chunky!” cried Ned. “But never mind. We won’t
rub it in. This has been a strenuous afternoon, all right, from the
time we sighted that submarine.”
“I wonder where it is now?” asked Bob, and his chums could see that he
really was worrying over the safety of his uncle and cousin.
“No telling,” said Jerry. “I don’t believe we will ever see her again.”
Neither he nor his chums realized what fate had in store for them in
connection with that same submarine.
Jerry knew the course he wished to take, though it was necessary to
steer by compass, and soon, when the storm had quieted down to only
a comparatively gentle blow, the tall steersman guided his craft to
the ground in a big open field, some miles from Boston. There it was
anchored for the night and the boys prepared to stay on board, as they
had often done before. They had come down in a lonely neighborhood, so
they were not troubled by curious spectators.
In the morning scarcely a trace of the storm was to be seen.
The boys made some necessary repairs, fixing the refractory rudder so
that it could be used temporarily.
“And then I’m done with it,” said Jerry, firmly. “I’m going to attach
an entirely different kind.”
Again the _Comet_ soared into the air, and this time her blunt nose was
pointed toward Cresville, which the boys reached in record time, no
happenings worthy of note occurring on the way.
“Well, I’m glad you boys are home!” exclaimed Mrs. Hopkins, as the
airship landed near Jerry’s house. “We were just beginning to get
anxious about you.”
“Oh, we’re all right, Mother!” exclaimed the tall lad, as he kissed
her. “Had a little blow, that’s all.” He seldom told of the dangers
through which he and his chums passed.
“There’s someone here to see you,” went on Mrs. Hopkins, with a smile.
“Is it Bob’s uncle?” asked Ned, with a laugh.
At that moment a voice was heard coming from the house. It said:
“One moment now, Susan! Don’t move. Stand very still!”
“What for? Am I going to have my picture took?” asked a voice Jerry
recognized as that of his mother’s maid.
“No, I am not going to photograph you,” was the answer. “But there is a
very rare specimen of a blue lady-bug on your left shoulder and I want
to get it for----”
“A bug! The saints preserve me! Take it off quick!” cried Susan.
“One moment! There, I have it!” was exclaimed triumphantly, and the
boys, with one accord, as they looked at each other cried out:
“Professor Snodgrass!”
It was indeed he, and a moment later the jolly little bald-headed
scientist stepped to the door, holding tightly in one hand the new bug
he had captured.
“Ah, good morning, boys!” he exclaimed. “Well, you see I came here
again, and this time I think you’ll agree that I have a difficult quest
under way.”
“Is it to get more luminous snakes?” asked Jerry, as he and his chums
shook hands with the professor.
“No, though that commission was hard enough. This time I have an order
from the Boston museum to get a specimen--three or four, if I can--of
the hermit crab, the _Pagurus_, or _Eupagurus Bernhardus_. And to do
this I shall have to search on the bottom of the sea. So if you have a
submarine boat anywhere around, boys, I’d like to use her, for I must
get that specimen!”
Jerry, Ned and Bob looked at one another. The professor’s words stirred
strange recollections.