IN PERIL
There was a deal of running about by the crew, getting ready for the
flight. Ned Newton stared at his friend, the inventor, and asked
softly:
“Just what are you getting at, Tom? Do you think that stranger is
around again?”
“I am pretty sure of it,” said Tom, in the same low tone. He swiftly
related what he had heard by radio-telephone that morning. “The thing
is mysterious, to say the least.”
“I’ll say so!” agreed Ned, wagging his head. “I don’t see what it can
mean.”
“We will hear more of it,” said Tom with confidence. “But probably
not to-day. At any rate, no stranger goes on the _Winged Arrow_ this
first trip.”
Although Rad Sampson had got breakfast for his beloved young master
in the galley of the seaplane that morning, he got off in a hurry
when the time approached for the trial flight.
“I been up in de air befo’, big man,” he said to Koku. “But, belieb
me! I ain’t hankering to go up no mo’ till Gabriel blows his trump.
No-suh!”
“Who Gab’el?” demanded the giant. “What he blow for?”
“Ma goodness! Of all de ignerances I ever heard tell of!” groaned
Rad. “I don’t see how you is ever gwine to git past Saint Peter,
Koku.”
Koku merely blinked. He was worried about Tom’s going up in the plane
without him. But nothing much else disturbed his simple mind just
then.
Tom tried out the motors several times. The propellers worked
perfectly. The hawsers holding the plane to the dock were thrown off,
and then the big airship began to move. Tom headed her out into the
lake.
The crowd ashore cheered wildly as the nose of the great seaplane
rose from the surface. She was then surrounded by a cloud of spray
and her motors were roaring. She lifted more and more, and soon those
ashore could see beneath the entire length of the boat’s keel.
She hung above the water for a time, swerving in a quarter circle
so as to head inshore again. Her wide wings and the two wheels
underneath for land travel made the machine look like some huge
winged insect or an antediluvian bird.
The plane soared higher and higher, spiraling upward over the heads
of the interested spectators. From the ground it seemed as though no
such huge machine could be floated in the air. It must come crashing
down to earth again!
But still it mounted. Mr. Barton Swift, with binoculars at his eyes,
watched the ascent with keen interest and some apprehension. He saw
its wavering course, and realized that the balance of the huge plane
was not at all perfect.
Smaller and smaller grew the plane to the naked eye. That it wabbled
in its course meant little to any of the spectators save the old
inventor. He knew that the crew of the _Winged Arrow_ was in trouble,
if not in danger!
Suddenly the old gentleman was aware of the presence beside him of a
man who likewise followed the course of the careening plane through
binoculars. Mr. Swift cast a sharp glance upon this individual.
He was very well dressed in a spick and span afternoon costume and
wore a flower in his buttonhole. His dab of black mustache and goatee
almost seemed painted upon his pale face. He brought the glasses down
from his eyes and looked at Mr. Barton Swift.
“What do you say, sir?” he asked. “Is she not making a heavy passage?”
Mr. Swift was instantly cautious. Tom had not spoken to his
father about this mysterious individual. But the old inventor had
experienced so much interference on his own part from rivals, and had
observed what Tom had sometimes suffered as well, that he was not
likely to divulge his own private opinion to this stranger.
“You understand,” he said quietly, “that no flying machine shoots
into the sky like an arrow, even if it is named _Arrow_.”
“True, true,” said the other eagerly. “It is a good point, sir. But
there! You see?” He pointed again eagerly with his cane. “Did you see
her roll then?”
“An air-pocket, most likely,” Mr. Swift said calmly.
But he knew that the _Winged Arrow_ was not yet high enough to find
those atmospheric “holes” which sometimes turn a plane over and
often cause wreck and disaster. Unlike the smaller flying machines,
the seaplane was not likely to take a tail-spin and come down,
unmanageable, in that way. But she might buckle and break her back in
one of those aerial vacuums.
“Is it your opinion, Mr. Swift,” asked the stranger in his too
perfect English, “that this plane will be a success?”
“My son evidently believes so, and that is enough for me,” returned
the old gentleman. “I am no longer active in our business. I could
not give a professional opinion upon the matter at this time.”
“Ah! You are cautious!” exclaimed the stranger.
“I am careful as to whom I talk with—yes,” admitted Mr. Swift
pointedly. “Come, sir! you have as good eyesight as I have. Arrive at
your own judgments.”
He turned away from the stranger then and gazed only at the rising
plane. But even he had small idea of what was going on aboard the
_Winged Arrow_ at just this time.
Tom Swift and Ned Newton were in the bow of the seaplane when she
swam out of the cove. The steering gear, as well as the tubes to the
mechanician’s compartment, were right at Tom’s hand. Besides, the
speed and altitude indicators were here. Like every other plane, the
_Winged Arrow_ was a “one-mind” machine. A single individual must
govern it all.
But, as Tom had long since pointed out, in testing flying machines
of all sizes, for safety’s sake, there should be a second man in the
cockpit of even a monoplane. In handling this huge plane it would be
a reckless thing for only one man to be at the steering and other
gear. A second must always be at hand to jump in and take charge if
anything happened to the chief steersman, or pilot.
Therefore Tom had trained Ned Newton for just this emergency. Ned had
learned with the inventor himself as the _Winged Arrow_ was building
how to handle the gears which controlled all the movements of the
plane. He could start, stop, raise, lower, and otherwise control the
huge machine about as well as Tom himself.
But on this maiden trip Tom allowed nobody save himself to touch the
mechanism in the bow of the boat.
When the craft had gained speed enough on the surface of the lake
Tom lifted her nose cautiously and, in a minute, sent her sliding
skyward. The slant of her nose became more abrupt after a few
minutes, and Tom shifted the levers so that the flying boat aimed
shoreward once again.
At that time she was sailing not many yards above the lake. As she
came inshore the pilot began to make her spiral upward. At first her
motion was merely a rocking one and not at all unpleasant to the crew
distributed about the boat.
Suddenly, as the plane rose at a sharper slant, she began to roll.
Ned shouted to ask his chum what had happened, for the windows were
open on the sides of the prow and the drumming of the wings and the
rush of the air engendered a noise that was almost deafening.
“I don’t know,” admitted Tom, shaking his head. “Remember, this is my
first trip in the thing as well as yours. Why should _I_ be supposed
to know all about it?” and he grinned cheerfully as he looked at his
chum.
But in a moment the car took another roll. Ned thought it was about
to turn turtle. It was no laughing matter.
“Did you make her so she would fly just as well upside down as on
even keel?” he demanded, having closed the windows.
Tom looked serious. His hand was on the steering levers, or controls.
He knew that this rolling motion must wrench the framework of the
plane enormously. They heard the beams groan, and somewhere a cable
snapped.
“Listen to that, will you?” exclaimed Ned.
The plane kept on even keel for a few moments longer. They had been
in peril, as Tom well knew. Were they now safe?
He lifted the nose of the craft a bit more and again the wings dipped
sideways and the boat rolled “upon her beam ends,” as would have been
said of a seagoing craft.
“Stop her, Tom! Stop her!” shouted Ned, scrambling up from the floor,
where he had fallen when the craft rolled.
But Tom knew that to shut off power and “stop” the flying boat would
court greater disaster.
For some unknown reason the craft had lost her balance, and when she
rolled over the other way it seemed to the young inventor as though
she must go completely over, her wings be wrenched away, and the
great craft fall to the earth in a tremendous crash!