LIFE’S HAZARD OF A SINGLE GLIDE
The coming out of the storm was like riding out of night into the bright
light of a new day. Pant, as he sat at the wheel, steering as in a dream,
was entranced by the beauty and wonder of it. They had been near death a
score of times in a single hour; now they were racing away to life. Life!
What a wonderful privilege just to live! How foolish boys must be who
risk life for some useless plaything—to accept a “dare” or experience
some new thrill. So he mused, and then all at once he realized that they
had risked their lives for a cause of which they knew little.
“Well,” he said, as he settled himself more firmly in his position behind
the wheel, “we’ve come this far, so we’ve got to see it through. I wonder
how far that storm has carried us off our course, and in what direction
we are going now?”
Rubbing the moisture off the glass of his compass, he read their
direction. Then he started. They were going north by east, and their
course was set for south by southwest.
Pant stared at the compass.
“Whew!” he whistled. “At that rate, we’ll be back where we started from
in due course of time.”
Then a new thought worried him. He, too, had remembered the dust in the
fuel tank. It must be running low. He could not tell their exact
position, but believed they were far nearer to a small group of islands
which they had sighted shortly before the storm struck them than they
were to their destination.
Immediately there was set up in his mind a tense conflict. “It’s better
to keep going in your present direction and to seek safety with a fresh
supply of fuel from those islands you just passed,” said his native
caution. “You have no right to turn back, for if you do you are sure to
lose the race,” said his instinctive loyalty to the cause of another.
Loyalty won the day, and with mouth grimly set he gradually turned the
plane about. Skirting the fringe of the storm, he sent the plane speeding
on her way.
Gradually the smoke of battle—the mists that lay low on the
horizon—disappeared, and they emerged into the glorious sunlight. The
ocean lay a glittering mass of jewels beneath them, jewels that sparkled
on a robe of emerald green. The sky, a vast blue dome, lay spread above
them, while a few white clouds skirted the horizon. Behind them, like the
uplifted head of a terrible sea-dragon, the storm still reared its masses
of tumult to the heavens.
“That,” said Pant through his mouthpiece, “was the worst I ever saw.”
Johnny Thompson threw back his head and laughed. A merry laugh it was. It
was easy to laugh when they were free.
For an hour the plane held steadily on its course—south by southwest. It
was a wonderful journey. Weary as he was and prone to fall asleep at his
post, Pant enjoyed it. Here and there they passed flocks of sea-gulls
that rose screaming from the sea. Once they raced for a few miles with a
honking wedge of wild geese. The presence of this flock made Pant think
they must be near some land. What land it might be he could not even
guess, but the thought cheered him.
For an hour, an hour and a quarter, an hour and a half, they sped on.
Both boys had forgotten the question of fuel. Johnny was puzzling over
the name of the contents of the chests on the wreck; Pant was wondering
about the fate of the ship they had sighted in the storm, when there came
a hoarse rumble from the right-hand engine, and the thunder of their
drivers was lessened by half.
With trembling hand Pant threw the lever out. The other motor was still
going, but he realized that it would be but a matter of moments until
that one also was dead.
Instinctively, as if preparing to run away from the ocean, which, having
been lashed by the storm, must still be rolling in great, sweeping waves
that would wreck their frail craft the instant she touched its surface,
he tilted the plane’s nose to a sharp angle and set her climbing.
They had been traveling some three thousand feet above the sea. Now they
climbed rapidly. Four thousand, and five thousand, six, seven, eight,
nine thousand. They were now entering a filmy cloud that sent long waving
arms down to clutch them. Now and again they “bumped,” dropping straight
down a hundred feet, then rising again. It was a glorious experience,
even if it might be their last.
With ears alert, as are the ears of a man expecting the sentence of
death, Pant awaited the last hoarse cough of the engine.
Finally it came; a grinding whirr, a tremor running through the plane, as
a shudder runs through the form of a dying animal, then all was silence.
It was such a silence as none of the three had ever experienced. For
hours they had listened to the scream of the storm, to the roar of
breakers, to the thunder of their engines. For another hour and a half
they had listened to the engines alone. Now there was utter silence; a
silence so intense that, had a feather been falling from a sea-gull’s
wing, it seemed that its passage through the air might be heard.
The plane had broad, spreading wings. It would float with easy grace to
the very surface of the sea. But then?
There was plenty of time to think now. No one cared to speak. Their minds
were concerned about many things. Life as they had lived it lay spread
out before them like the pages of a picture-book. All the past moved
before them. They came to the end, at last, and thus to the question of
the ship in the storm and the wreck on the desert island. Had the ship
escaped from the storm? Was the wreck still intact, or had it been
destroyed by the waves? Would the wreckers find the treasure? What then?
Slowly the plane drifted down. Eight thousand feet, seven thousand, six,
five, four, three.
Suddenly Pant moved in his seat. Seizing his tube in his excitement,
forgetting that they might easily speak to one another since the sound of
the engines was gone, he shouted:
“Listen!”
Johnny threw open the door of the cabin and sat listening.
“I only hear the waves,” he said.
“Two kinds of sounds, though,” smiled Pant; “a steady wash and a
thundering.”
“Yes, I hear them.”
“The thundering means land.”
“Eh?” Johnny gazed down toward the wide circle of the sea. “But where?”
It was true. From this point in the air, though they could see for many
miles, only the unbroken expanse of dark green waters met their view.
“There!” exclaimed Pant in triumph. He was pointing to a long line of
white. “That’s surf. Some coral island there. Surf’s breaking over it. If
we can make the lee of it we’re safe.”
He brought the nose of the plane about until it pointed toward the white
line. Silence followed—a silence that could almost be felt. Only the
murmur of vast waters and the distant thunder of the breakers, like the
falls of a great river, disturbed that silence. Their lives depended on
the length of a single glide.
Johnny Thompson opened two small round windows, portholes to the cabin.
The Professor, sensing the tenseness of the situation, without fully
understanding it, did likewise. Then the three of them watched the
rolling ocean as it rose up to meet them.
Now they appeared to be a mile from that white line of foam. They were
twenty-eight hundred feet in air. At fifteen hundred feet they appeared
to be scarcely half a mile away. Beneath them rolled the treacherous
waves; before them the breakers roared. Just over that crest of foam
there lay a narrow bay, still as a millpond. Could they make it? Pant
lifted a trembling hand to his forehead to brush away cold perspiration.
Johnny stirred uneasily. Only the Professor was silent. Motionless as a
sphinx, he watched the ocean spin along beneath him.
Gradually as they sank lower and lower objects became distinct to them.
The north end of the island appeared to rise some twenty feet above the
sea. The south end was lower. The whole of it was lined with a fringe of
palms.
“Better turn her a bit south,” Johnny suggested. “It’s lower there and
less chance of a smash.”
Without a word Pant followed his directions.
Lower and lower they drifted. Closer and closer came the island. For a
time it seemed that they must inevitably drop into the sea. Then it
appeared that they would miss the ocean but drive into the palms.
A hundred feet in air they swept on. Catching his breath, Pant unbuckled
his harness. Johnny and the Professor followed his example. The next
second, with a strange, land-like breath of air sweeping up to them, they
passed over the very fringe-tops of the palms. One moment later they were
standing up in their craft, which gently rose and fell with the water.
Without a word they solemnly shook hands.
There are moments in the life of every person when he feels himself so
closely welded to the life of some other one that only death can separate
them. Johnny felt that such a time had arrived in his life. He and Pant
were already inseparable. Now, by this simple, silent handshake, they
took the Professor into their narrow circle. They had suffered in peril
together.
They were now on a narrow island of the Pacific in a seaplane without
fuel, and with provisions for but a day. Come what might, they would
stick together until the end.
Their first precaution was to bring their plane as close in shore as the
shallow water would permit, then to anchor it securely. After that they
unfolded a small, collapsible boat and prepared to make their way ashore.
“Inhabited or not?” smiled Pant.
“If inhabited, cannibal or otherwise?” Johnny smiled back.
“I hope we are not to tarry here long,” said the Professor.
“We’ll tarry until we discover some fuel, and I don’t think green palm
trees will be of much use,” said Johnny seriously. “Have you anything to
suggest?”
The Professor seemed inclined to take these remarks as being in the form
of a joke, but seeing that Johnny was serious, he said, as his brow
wrinkled:
“It is really very important that we be on our way. We cannot be more
than a hundred miles from our destination.”
“Perhaps not even that,” said Pant, “but they may be very hard miles to
travel.”
“If we only were there,” sighed Johnny. “There is sure to be coal on the
wreck.”
“But, since we’re not, let’s explore our island,” suggested Pant.
“And sleep,” said Johnny. “I’m about to fall asleep as I walk.”
“Better bring the rifles,” suggested Pant. “Doesn’t seem likely that
there is a single living soul on this island—it’s no more than a coral
rock sticking up out of the sea; can’t be two miles long—but you never
can tell.”
Johnny brought two rifles from the plane. After rubbing the moisture from
their barrels, he slipped a handful of cartridges in each, and set them
up in the bow of the boat.
Pant had already gathered up an armful of sacks and cans, enough food for
a day ashore. Throwing these into the bottom of the boat, he exclaimed:
“All aboard for no man’s land.”
Then all climbed in. Johnny took the oars. Ten minutes of rowing brought
them ashore.
It was a strange sensation that came to them as they stepped on solid
ground once more. They had been swinging and tossing about for so long
that solid earth seemed unreal—only part of a dream.
“Don’t see a sign of life,” said Johnny as he glanced up and down the
beach, then into the depths of the palms.
“Here’s a bit of bamboo that looks as if it had been cut with a knife,”
said Pant.
“Might have drifted in,” suggested Johnny. Other than this they found no
sign of life.
After a brief consultation they decided that, simply as a matter of
precaution, they should make the rounds of the shore before settling down
to sleep.
Night would be coming on in an hour, so, after partaking of a hasty
repast, the two boys, armed with the rifles, struck up the beach to the
right. The Professor was left to keep an eye on the plane.
Nothing eventful happened until the boys had made three-fourths of their
journey. As they had expected, they had found no sign of human life on
the island. Night was falling; the sea was growing calm after the storm;
they were looking forward to a few hours of refreshing sleep when, of a
sudden, as they rounded a clump of palms, Johnny sprang backward, and,
clutching his companion’s arm, dragged him into the deeper shadows.
“Wha—what is it?” stammered Pant.
“A camp fire on the beach, and men, six or eight of them, I think,
sitting about it. Natives, I should judge.”
For a time the boys stood there in silence. It was a tense moment. Each
in his own way was trying to solve the problem that had suddenly thrust
itself upon them. Should they show themselves to the natives, or should
they try to discover some way to escape from the islands?
“I don’t think,” said Pant, as if talking to himself, “that we can get
off the island without their aid.”
“A ship might appear,” suggested Johnny.
“Not likely,” said Pant. “We’re too far off the beaten path of sea
travel.”
“All right. C’m’on,” said Johnny, as he led the way out into the open
where the camp fire gleamed.