WRECKED!
"It's not a ship, Carl," said Dick.
"Ach, du lieber," wailed Carl, "don'd tell me dot!"
"But it's something just as good, and perhaps better. It's an island."
"Turtle Key!" jubilated Carl, shortsighted as usual and glad only that
they were perhaps coming closer to the iron chest. "Hoop-a-la!"
"No," went on Dick, "not Turtle Key. It's another island."
"How you know dot?"
"I can see some palm trees. Townsend told us that Turtle Key has no
trees."
"A good thing for us that it isn't Turtle Key!" declared Matt, plucking
up hope. "If we're to be wrecked, the more comfortable the place we're
wrecked in, the better. What could we possibly do on a sand hill in
the middle of the ocean? If there are trees on that island it may be
inhabited. How far away is it, Dick?"
"A mile or more, matey, but just how far it's hard to tell. Bear off a
point to starboard--that'll lay us in a direct line with the land."
Matt's anxious eyes were on the gas bag. He watched its diminishing
bulk and tried to figure on how long it would keep them out of the
water. The tendency of the air ship to settle was now most pronounced.
Matt could only fight it by tilting the rudder upward and driving the
motor to its full limit. This, of course, diminished somewhat the
forward motion; but the breeze, fortunately, was freshening, and the
speed lost in keeping the bag in the air was more than compensated by
the increased force of the wind.
The island could now be plainly seen by the naked eye. It was low and
sandy and only two or three palm trees could be seen. The size of the
island dashed Matt's hope of finding it inhabited.
"Keep her moving, mate!" shouted Ferral. "We're coming closer! A
quarter of a mile farther and we'll alight on solid ground."
Matt was fighting a fierce battle with the diminishing gas. Every move
he could think of was brought into play. From a five hundred-foot
elevation the Hawk descended to four hundred feet, to three and then to
two.
The craft was tilted sharply upward, the racing propeller trying vainly
to drive her back to the heights she was surely and steadily losing.
Matt called Dick and Carl back toward the stern in order to free the
forward part of the car of their weight and make it easier to keep the
Hawk's nose in the air. This maneuver met with some success, although
the air ship continued to settle by the stern, coming nearer and nearer
the tumbling waves.
The island was so close now that those aboard could see a little cove
in its shore line. The tilted air ship, like some stricken monster, was
being carried toward this cove by the wind.
"That bit of a bay is a good place for us to come down, matey," said
Dick.
"Almost any place will be good enough," answered Matt, grimly, "just so
it's close enough to the shore."
"Der pag," cried Carl, "ain'd more dan haluf so pig as id vas."
"Throw over some of that plunder!" ordered Matt. "Not the water cask or
the provisions, but anything else you can lay hands on."
The binoculars went first, then the mooring ropes and a few other
objects which could be of no particular use to castaways on a desert
island.
The effect was instantly noticeable and, for a brief space, the Hawk
seemed to stay her descent. In a few minutes she had drifted almost
over the cove.
Just at that moment the hissing of the escaping gas grew to redoubled
volume, proving that the rent had suddenly broken wide and that the
bag's contents was pouring out. The ship began to drop more rapidly.
"I'll go overboard, mates," shouted Dick. "Maybe that'll lighten the
car so the two of you can reach land. It's only a small swim."
In a flash, Ferral had flung himself into the water. But the loss of
his weight did not help--the air ship was losing gas too fast for that.
"Over with you, Carl!" cried Matt. "It won't be hard for you to get
ashore."
Matt wanted to get the air ship to dry land, but it was apparent to him
that this was impossible.
The Hawk was doomed! As quickly as he could, Motor Matt made ready to
follow Carl and Dick.
Standing on the rail and clinging to one of the ropes by which the car
was suspended from the bag, Matt paused for a second and then flung
himself outward and downward.
Coming up, he shook the water from his eyes and began swimming. Dick
had already dropped his feet on the bottom and was wading ashore. Carl,
spluttering and floundering, was just ahead of Matt.
Dick's eyes were on the air ship. Something about the Hawk was claiming
his attention.
Matt, swerving his gaze in the direction of the air ship, was surprised
to see her still hanging in the air with the wind slowly wafting her
shoreward. For a moment Matt was puzzled, then it flashed over him that
there was enough gas in the upper point of the cigar-shaped envelope to
keep the empty car and the bag out of the water.
Matt gained the shore and sank down on the sand beside Dick and Carl.
"How do you explain that, matey?" queried Dick.
"Why," answered Matt, "there's enough gas in the point of the bag,
above the hole, to keep the fabric aloft. Had we stayed in the car we'd
have brought the air ship down into the water. I was afraid the Hawk
was lost to us, but now we'll be able to save her, and without injury
to the motor. When she gets close enough, we'll catch hold of the car
and pull her down."
"Vat good vill it do to safe der air ship, Matt?" asked Carl,
lugubriously. "Meppy ve could patch oop der hole, but vere ve going to
ged some more gas to fill der pag oop again?"
"We can't get away from this island in the Hawk," returned Matt, "but
some ship may come along and pick us up. In that event, we'll be able
to take the Hawk away with us. We've got too much money wrapped up in
that machine to leave it here on this island."
"Right-o!" exclaimed Dick. "Not only is the Hawk saving herself for us,
but she's bringing ashore our supplies. And it's a cinch we're going to
need those supplies, mates. I'm a Fiji if I think there's anything but
turtles here to eat."
By that time the air ship had drifted over the beach. By running up the
slope leading down to the beach, the boys were able to grasp the lower
end of the car, and they easily hauled it to the ground. This move
caused most of the gas that still remained in the bag to escape, and
the envelope flattened itself out in the sand, twisting and writhing as
the last of the gas worked its way out.
"This is the end of our cruise in the Hawk," muttered Dick, staring
gloomily at the useless air ship, "and if this tight little island
hadn't bounced up right in front of us just when we needed it most,
the cruise would have been the end of us, too. But there's no use
overhauling our hard luck. We're here, and we're safe, and we'd be
worse than cannibals not to be satisfied. Let's slant away for those
palms, doff our wet gear and sit in the shade till the sun dries our
clothes."
"A good idea," assented Matt. "After we get dried out we'll pitch some
sort of a camp and try and run up a flag of distress on one of the palm
trees. We could be a whole lot worse off than we are, pards."
"Anyvay," grumbled Carl, while he was getting out of his clothes and
spreading them in the sun to dry, "we don'd findt dot Durdle Islandt,
und ve von't efer know vedder dere iss a iron chest on der islandt or
nod."
"Fiend take the iron chest!" grunted Dick.
"You don'd care nodding for dot?" queried Carl, mildly surprised.
"Not a hap'orth. The time has come, Carl, when Motor Matt and his
mates have got to look out for Number One. Maskee! If we're hung up
on this two-by-twice turtle-back for long, the five thousand we're to
get from Townsend won't be a whack-up to what we're losing in Atlantic
City. It's a fair bad break we made, coming off on this jamboree. We
wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been Townsend that asked us."
"That's the plain truth of it, Dick," said Matt. "Townsend had a claim
on us and we were in duty bound to help him."
Carl, in his eagerness to be looking around the island, got into his
clothes before they were fairly dry. Leaving Matt and Dick to talk, the
Dutch boy ambled away and was quickly out of sight over the knoll that
formed the backbone of the island.
"This looks like a case of where the wrong triumphs over the right,"
observed Dick. "Jurgens, who's a swab and a crook from heels to
sky-piece, puts as brazen a piece of work as I ever heard of right over
the plate. And it seems as though he was going to score, at that."
"He'll get his come-up-with before long," declared Matt. "That sort of
crookedness may win for a little while, but it's bound to lose out in
the long run."
"Where Townsend missed it was in not letting the authorities send
Jurgens up that time he crawled into Townsend's office and was caught
red-handed going through his desk. If Townsend had done what he ought
to then, there'd have been no trouble like this now. Sometimes it's bad
policy to be too easy with----"
A loud yell came floating over the top of the sandy ridge.
Both Matt and Dick sprang excitedly to their feet.
"Carl!" exclaimed Dick.
"Sounds like he was in trouble," cried Matt. "Come on and let's see
what's up."