He turned the knob very slowly with his left hand. As Tom sat upon the
end of the couch he would be behind the door when he opened it. The
weapon the commander of the Zeppelin had neglected to take from him was
in his right hand, and ready for use.
He gently drew the door toward him. As he had supposed, it was not
locked. When it was ajar he waited for what might follow.
Then, through the aperture at the back of the door, he had a view of the
narrow cabin to its very end. Sufficient light entered through the
several windows of clouded glass to show him that there was nobody in
sight. Not even the private who had brought his lunch had lingered here.
Rising swiftly and with the pistol ready in his hand, the young American
stepped out of the closet in which he had been confined. There was a
small German clock screwed to the wall. It was now almost noon.
Crouching, ready to leap or run as the case might need, Tom approached
the other end of the cabin. There he could see through the dim pane of
the door, gaining a view of the afterdeck.
The mystery of the absence of all life forward was instantly explained.
More than a dozen of the crew and officers were gathered on the
afterdeck. They stood in a row along the deck, their heads bared, while
the _ober-leutnant_ read from a book.
Tom realized almost at once what the scene meant, and he shrank back
from the door. The crew could not hear, of course, the words the officer
pronounced; but they were all probably familiar with the service for the
dead in the Prayer Book.
Somehow the ceremony affected Tom Cameron strongly. At the feet of the
row of men were laid two bodies lashed in a covering, or shroud. They
were the men mowed down by the machine gun which Tom himself had
manipulated from the American airplane.
The Germans are sentimentalists, it must be confessed. They would take
time on their way to raid an enemy city from the air in a most cowardly
fashion, to read the burial service over their comrades.
For the airship was over the sea now, and, as though from the deck of a
sailing ship, the dead bodies could be slid into the water. But the
height from which they would fall was much greater than on any ocean
vessel.
The book was closed. Two bearers at the head and two at the feet of each
corpse raised them on narrow stretchers, the foot-ends of which were
rested upon the rail. A gesture from the officer, and the stretchers
were tipped. The bodies slid quietly over the rail and disappeared.
The officer put the Prayer Book in his pocket and adjusted his helmet
and goggles. The men with him followed suit. He dismissed them, and
almost at once the throbbing of the motors was increased.
Tom Cameron ran back to the closet and shut himself in. He felt sure the
commander would come through the cabin to the forward deck. However, the
German did not try the knob of the closet door.
Tom saw him pass along the deck to the pilot house, facing the stiff
gale. His garments blew about him furiously, and it seemed that the wind
had suddenly increased in violence.
The course of the airship was changed. Tom knew that, for the next time
a German passed along the deck he saw that his coat-tails flapped
sideways. The Zeppelin was being steered across the course of the gale.
If he could only get to the steering gear and do something to it--wreck
it in some way, at least, put it out of commission for a while. What
would happen to him did not matter. Tom Cameron had been taking chances
for some time.
He could feel the Zeppelin stagger under the beating of the fierce gale.
There was a black cloud just ahead of the flying craft. Suddenly this
cloud was striped again and again with yellow lightning.
Then how it did rain! The downpour slanted across the airship, beating
in waves, like those of a troubled sea, against the cabin framework. Tom
felt the whole structure rock and tremble.
He felt that the ship was rising. The commander purposed to get above
this electric storm. Again and again the lightning flashed. It ran along
the wires, limning each stay luridly.
In addition Tom began to feel the creeping cold of the higher atmosphere
searching through his clothing. He buttoned his leather coat and looked
about for something of additional warmth. The cold was seeping right
into the closet around the window frame.
Then it was that Tom found the blanket. He lifted the cushion on the
bench by chance, and there it was, neatly folded. This closet must be
used at times for a sleeping place.
He could barely see what he was about, for it had grown black outside.
Only the recurrent flashes of lightning illuminated the scene. And that
scene, when he stared through the window, was wild indeed.
Tom put on his helmet and the goggles fastened thereto and wrapped
himself in the blanket. He lay down with his head close to the window.
Slowly the Zeppelin was rising above the tempest. By and by the last
whisps of the storm-cloud disappeared; but the gale still thundered
through the wire stays of the ship and buffeted the great envelope above
the swinging cabin and bridges.
"Such a craft might be easily torn to pieces by the wind!" The thought
was not cheering, and Tom put it aside as he did all other depressing
ideas.
It seemed to him that he had already gone through so much that his life
was charmed. At least, he never felt less fear than he did at the
present time.
The sharp gale continued. The Zeppelin had risen much higher, but it
could not get above the wind-storm. Although it may have been steering
to a nicety, he was sure that the huge craft was drifting off her course
to a considerable degree.
After a couple of hours the commander of the Zeppelin came back from the
pilot-house. He saw Tom's face pressed close to the window and waved his
hand.
When he entered the cabin Tom slipped back to the door and opened it a
narrow crack. The _ober-leutnant_ went right through the cabin and
disappeared.
Was the time ripe for Tom to carry out the scheme which had been slowly
forming in his mind? Was the moment propitious?
The young American hesitated. It meant peril--perhaps death--for him,
whether he succeeded or failed. He knew that well enough. Such an
attempt as he purposed might only be bred of desperation.
He tore off the helmet and goggles which had masked him. He rolled the
blanket and laid it along the bench as his own body had lain. On to the
end of the roll next the window he pulled the helmet and arranged the
goggles so that a glance through the window would show a man lying
apparently asleep on the cushioned bench.
Then he tied a handkerchief of khaki color over his head and prepared to
steal out of the closet, his pistol in his hand.