AEROPLANE WINS!
Matt supposed that the automobile must have broken down somewhere on
the road. His friends had not arrived in time to help him, so he was
thrown upon his own resources.
While he and Miss Manners were racing toward the aëroplane, Matt was
measuring his chances. The appearance of the second Hindoo, on the
other side of the opening, complicated the dangers of the situation.
If these Hindoos were armed, as the girl had declared, then the case
was indeed desperate. In making its start, however, the _Comet_ would
be running away from Aurung Zeeb, and straight toward the other Hindoo.
This second man would have to leave the road or be run down; and if the
start was made quickly enough, the _Comet_ could get away from Aurung
Zeeb.
"Sit there," cried Matt, lifting the girl to a seat on the lower plane.
"Hold on," he added, starting the motor, "and don't move."
The girl's small fingers twined convulsively into the hand-holds. Matt
dropped into his own seat and turned the power into the bicycle wheels.
Slowly they took the push, the great wings lurching and swaying as the
aëroplane moved.
Would it be possible for the machine, unaided by a crew of men behind
the wings, to take to the air before the trees on the opposite side of
the opening interfered?
This was a momentous, nay, a vital, question, and could only be solved
by actual trial.
Out of the tails of his eyes Matt saw Ben Ali rising groggily to his
feet. He flung up his arms and shouted.
Crack!
From behind came a bullet, ripping through the canvas of the upper
plane, but, fortunately, doing no damage to the machinery. Aurung Zeeb
was doing the firing.
And this same Aurung Zeeb had failed Ben Ali once in a dangerous pinch.
This had caused a rupture of the friendly relations between the two
men, but their differences had evidently been patched up. Now Aurung
Zeeb was doing his utmost to help Ben Ali--and, perhaps, to land
himself in the same trouble in which Dhondaram had been entrapped.
Another bullet was fired, but Aurung Zeeb must have been shooting as he
ran, for his aim was poor.
Faster and faster raced the aëroplane, and Matt kept measuring the
distance between the machine and the trees on the farther side of
the opening. The Hindoo, in the road ahead, was running out of the
aëroplane's path like a frightened hare.
By then, Ben Ali had joined in the chase, but the speed of the _Comet_
was too great for the pursuers.
They were close to the edge of the timber, very close, when Matt felt
the wings beginning to lift. A dozen feet farther and they were in the
air.
In a flash the power was switched from the wheels to the propeller. The
aëroplane dropped a little before it yielded to the thrashing blades of
the screw; then it picked up the lost headway and arose.
The upward tilt was frightful, but necessary if a wreck in the treetops
was to be avoided.
Never a word had come from Margaret Manners. White as a ghost, she held
to her place, swaying her body to preserve a poise against the tilt and
pitch of the huge framework.
The wheels brushed against the outer ends of the tree limbs, but the
machine continued to glide into the air, walking upward as though
climbing the rounds of a ladder.
If the motor had failed from any cause, there could have been no
harmless gliding back to earth. A sheer drop downward would have been
the result.
But the motor performed its work, and the trees presently hid the
Hindoos and screened the _Comet_ from any further attack.
Then, and not till then, did the king of the motor boys draw a full
breath.
"Are you holding on, Miss Manners?" asked Matt.
"Yes," was the reply in a stifled voice.
"You're not afraid?"
"No."
"Bravo! We'll soon be back at the show grounds. You have seen the last
of Ben Ali."
High above the trees Matt brought the _Comet_ to an even keel, then
laid out in a straightaway flight toward the lake. This time he did not
follow the Elgin road, but struck across country the nearest way home.
That was not the first time Margaret Manners had had a ride in the
aëroplane. Some time before, when, under the name of Haidee, she had
traveled with the Big Consolidated, she had ridden on a trapeze swung
below the machine. It was against Matt's will, and only a trick of
Burton's had made it possible for the girl to make the ascension. At
the time she was under hypnotic influence, and could not realize what
she was doing. So, it followed, this was really the first ride she had
ever taken in the aëroplane while mistress of her own faculties and
able to understand her situation.
She behaved admirably, and did not even cry out when the wings tilted
sideways, or ducked forward with the seeming intention of hurling her
and Matt to the earth.
There was no talk between the two. In silence Matt attended to his
work, drove the _Comet_ at speed over the show grounds, circled, and
came down in the roped-off space set apart for the machine.
The crowds were still lingering, waiting for the aëroplane to return.
Cheering began as soon as the _Comet_ was in sight, and was kept up
until she was safely on the ground in the position from which she had
originally started.
Carl and Ping were waiting, too, and the eyes of both boys were big
with astonishment when they saw and recognized Margaret Manners.
"Vell, py shiminy grickets!" exclaimed Carl.
The girl smiled at him wanly as Matt helped her from her seat.
"You and Ping take care of the machine, Carl," cautioned Matt, as he
led Miss Manners to the guard ropes and parted a course for her through
the jostling mob.
"Hurrah for Motor Matt!" shouted some one. "He goes out alone and comes
back with a passenger!"
A laugh followed the cheer.
"What's the price for a trip on the _Comet_?" called some one else.
"Where does your air-ship line run?"
"Give me a ticket to San Francisco!"
Matt met the joking good-naturedly and piloted Miss Manners to the
calliope tent. The girl was tired and worn out.
"You'd better get a little rest, Miss Manners," Matt suggested. "What
you have passed through this morning would have shaken nerves much
stronger than yours."
"I don't want to rest," she answered; "I want to talk. You have saved
me again, Motor Matt, but what is the use of it all if I can't leave
this country and go to England, or back to India? Ben Ali will find me
again."
"You are through with him," said Matt, "just as I told you. A man has
come from the British legation in Washington to get you and send you
away by the first boat leaving New York."
"The man who came to Mrs. Chadwick's in Lafayette said the same thing,"
answered the girl wearily. "It seems as though there is no escaping Ben
Ali."
"Has he hypnotized you many times since he took you from Mrs.
Chadwick's?" asked Matt anxiously.
"Only once. I gave up hope, and went with him without trying to resist.
He said he intended to send me back to India, but not until the rajah
had paid him a lot of rupees."
"He treated you well?"
"He always treated me well--in his way--but the horror of going into
a trance and saying and doing things I know nothing about is more
terrible than ever to me. It was the fear of a trance that made me
promise not to make Uncle Ben any trouble."
"Who was the man who impersonated the agent of the British ambassador?"
"I had never seen him before."
"I thought that perhaps he might have been the man who sold tickets in
the ticket wagon for Burton--the one who was with the show when you and
Ben Ali were traveling with us."
She shook her head.
"I should have known that man if it had been he."
"Where did the man take you?"
"On the train somewhere. I thought we were going to Washington until we
got off the train at a little station and met Uncle Ben. It was then he
threw me into a trance, and when he awoke me we were at a little house
near the place where we went this morning to wait for Dhondaram. Aurung
Zeeb was at the house, and so was the other Hindoo--a man I had never
seen before. You are sure," the girl asked tremblingly, "that this
other agent of the British ambassador is really the person he pretends
to be?"
The girl's lack of confidence was pitiable. She had suffered so much
that Matt could readily understand her feelings.
"I am positive, Miss Manners," he answered gently. "You must rest now.
I will have Mrs. Harris come and stay with you for a while."
The girl did not object, and Matt had soon found Mrs. Harris and sent
her to the calliope tent.
Two hours later, while Matt was lounging around the front of the animal
tent, a tired party consisting of Burton, Twomley, and McGlory arrived
from the direction of the street-car line.
"You Matt!" cried McGlory. "Why didn't you wait and give us a chance?"
"If I'd waited much longer," answered Matt, "there wouldn't have been a
chance for anybody. Did you see me coming back from the oak opening?"
"Did we?" echoed Twomley, putting his monocle in his eyes. "By Jove, I
should say we did. Fancy! You up aloft, sailing as nice as you please
with Miss Manners beside you, and Burton, McGlory, and me tramping
along the road."
"What was the matter?" asked Matt.
"Matter?" fumed Burton. "What's the matter when you set out in an
automobile and don't arrive where you're going? The motor bucked, three
miles out of Grand Rapids, and you sailed right along and never paid
any attention to us. McGlory, Twomley, and I started to walk the rest
of the distance, when we saw the machine couldn't be fixed up for an
hour or so, and before we'd gone a mile you sailed off in the direction
of the show grounds--and never looked our way! Oh, blazes! I'm done
with automobiles."