Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover art]
----
[Illustration: IN THE NICK OF TIME]
SWIFT AND SURE
The Story of a Hydroplane
By
HERBERT STRANG
Author of 'King of the Air,' 'Barclay of the Guides,' etc., etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY J. FINNEMORE
LONDON
HENRY FROWDE
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
1910
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
PREFACE
Exactly a century has passed since the French invasion of Spain gave the
signal for a general revolt of the Spanish-American Colonies. In the
twenty years' struggle that ensued, Spain paid in kind for more than
three centuries of Colonial misrule. Her garrisons, again and again
reinforced from the mother country, fought a losing fight, with the
old-time Spanish gallantry that had won for Ferdinand the Empire of the
West. But the tide of freedom swept them remorselessly from one
province after another, and with them went the swarms of corrupt
officials who since the days of Cortes and Pizarro had plundered the
colonies for the benefit of the Spanish treasury.
In the northern provinces the leading spirit of revolt was Simon
Bolivar, a man whose many faults of character were obscured by an
extraordinary energy and enthusiasm. He is said to have fought four
hundred battles; his victories were sullied by inhuman barbarities; his
defeats were retrieved by unconquerable perseverance. Bolivar was
instrumental in founding five republics, among them that of his native
province of Venezuela, of which he was the first President.
Ten years of one of the grimmest struggles known to history gave freedom
to Venezuela and her sister republics; but in the north, as in many
other parts of the Continent, freedom has for the past century spelt,
not liberty, but licence. Centuries of slavery, in fact if not in name,
had rendered the mixed races of South America unfit for self-government.
The mass of the people merely exchanged one set of corrupt rulers for
another; the history of the South American Republics has been for the
most part a chronicle of incessant civil war between the partisans of
rival dictators. Venezuela has in this respect one of the saddest
records. Since Bolivar, her first liberator, died in exile eighty years
ago, she has enjoyed scarcely five consecutive years of peace. Although
blessed with boundless natural resources, the country is probably the
most backward of all states that can claim a place among civilized
nations. The population of Venezuela is believed to be less at the
present time than during the Spanish domination; and it is doubtful
whether the condition of the people has been sensibly bettered by a
hundred years of self-government.
The best hope for this and other South American republics seems to be in
the gradual opening up of the Continent by the capital and enterprise of
more progressive communities. This movement has hitherto been checked
by the insecurity of life and property due to constantly recurring
revolutions. But sooner or later trade and commerce, one of the
greatest of civilizing agencies, must bring the nations of South America
into such close relationship with Europe and the United States that they
cannot fail to recognize the value of stable political institutions.
This recognition will be the first step towards what the wars of
independence should have given, but did not give them--liberty.
HERBERT STRANG.
----
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I--JAGUAR AND HYDROPLANE
CHAPTER II--THE HACIENDA
CHAPTER III--AN ARMED PARTY
CHAPTER IV--SIMPLE SUBTRACTION
CHAPTER V--A SCRAP OF PAPER
CHAPTER VI--THE HOLE IN THE WALL
CHAPTER VII--CARABANO'S PLANS
CHAPTER VIII--A RACE AGAINST TIME
CHAPTER IX--THE ATTACK ON CIUDAD BOLIVAR
CHAPTER X--SCOUTING
CHAPTER XI--A LEAP IN THE DARK
CHAPTER XII--THE KIDNAPPERS
CHAPTER XIII--A SNAG
CHAPTER XIV--REPAIRS
CHAPTER XV--HYDROPLANE _VERSUS_ LOCOMOTIVE
CHAPTER XVI--THE END OF A REVOLUTION
----
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
In the Nick of Time
A Scrimmage at Railhead
Assault and Battery
The Race to the Swift
CHAPTER I--JAGUAR AND HYDROPLANE
The level rays of the early sun were struggling with the mist that
lingered upon a broad full river, like a sluggard loth to quit his bed.
As yet the contest was unequal, for the banks of the stream were covered
with trees and shrubs, crowding upon one another as if in competition
for elbow-room, through whose thick ravelled foliage the sunbeams could
not clear a way. Here and there, however, the dense screen was parted
by little alleys or open spaces carpeted with grass or moss, and through
these a golden radiance shone, dispersing the mist, and throwing a
glistening pathway across the river.
At one such glade, withdrawn a little from the brink, stood a jaguar,
which, from moment to moment, lifted its head and gave utterance to a
roar. It faced the stream: its tail lashed its flanks, to the annoyance
of countless flies which would fain have found a temporary lodgment in
its sleek and glossy coat. It roared, and roared again, with curious
persistence, for the mere pleasure of roaring, an observer might have
thought. And yet such a person, had he been worthy of the name
observer, would have detected a reason for this strange behaviour. Had
he watched the surface of the water opposite to where the jaguar stood,
he would have marked a gradual assembling of greenish-yellow objects,
scaly and hard; and, set in each, two glassy leering eyes. They were in
fact the snouts of alligators, or caymans as they are known in
Venezuela.
Moment by moment the assemblage increased, the hideous creatures gaping
at the jaguar like an enraptured audience at a popular baritone. The
quadruped, indeed, was executing his solo for their amusement, though
hardly for their benefit. One could have fancied, as the audience grew,
that he derived encouragement from their presence, and exerted himself
with ever greater abandon. The performance, however, came to an end
surprisingly abrupt. Suddenly the roarer turned his head up-stream and
set off with lolloping gait along a winding track that led among the
trees. The observer, following him, would have seen him force his way
through the undergrowth, now leaping a fallen trunk that lay across his
path, now pressing his body through a tangle that might have seemed
impenetrable.
Meanwhile the caymans also had turned upstream, and swam after the
jaguar, like an idle crowd following at the heels of a street singer.
But though their movements were rapid, they had to stem the current, and
the object of their solicitation drew away from them. Nor did he stop
to practise his vocal powers again. Steadily he pursued his way until
he had left them a mile or more behind. Then, compelled to strike off
to the left by a peculiarly dense mass of thorn, he quitted the brink of
the stream for a few yards. Coming upon it again through a glade, he
looked warily about him, advancing with slow and stealthy tread. It was
at this spot that he purposed to cross the river. All at once he
stopped short, and sinking to the ground, lay motionless, scarcely
distinguishable from the jungle around him, so closely did his colouring
harmonize with it. In a few moments, with the silent undulating
movement of a cat stalking a bird, he crept forward. No caymans were
near; having attracted them by his vocalization he had left them in the
lurch, and was content. But on a branch of a tree overhanging the river
he had spied the form of a dark-skinned man stretched at full length.
The hunted was now the hunter. The reptiles had lost their victim; he
in his turn was intent on seizing his prey.
The man lay close upon the branch, his eyes fixed upon some object on
the farther bank, a little distance up-stream. The tree being rooted in
the base of the bank, which here rose a few yards above the river, the
jaguar was somewhat higher than the man, stretched all unsuspecting upon
a lower bough. Noiselessly, without so much as a rustle, the animal
glided down the face of the bank, and coming to the tree, began to climb
up the slanting trunk behind his destined victim. No ear could have
detected his furtive movements; the man's attention was absorbed by the
object of his gaze; yet, when the beast was only a few feet from him,
some instinct warned him of impending danger. He turned his head, and
beheld the savage creature crouching for a spring. Quick as thought,
the man rolled himself round the branch, and dropped with a heavy splash
into the river. The jaguar was already launched in air when the man let
go his hold, but instead of striking his prey, he lighted on the vacant
branch. The force of his spring was too great to be checked by the grip
of his claws upon the bark. He lost his footing, and fell plump into
the water where it still eddied from the plunge of the man.
A hundred yards up the river, moored to a tree-stump in the further
bank, lay a motor-boat of unusual shape. Its only occupant, a young
white man, in the act of casting off, had looked up when he heard the
first splash. Before he could see what had caused it, the jaguar
tumbled headlong from the branch. With the instinct of a sportsman, the
young man instantly stretched his hand towards the rifle that lay at his
side, only to draw it back as he remembered that the charge was small
shot. The head of the jaguar appeared above the surface; the white man
wondered what had caused the first splash, but seeing the animal
swimming downstream he was not specially interested, and was on the
point of lifting his mooring-rope on board when he suddenly caught sight
of a black head on the surface, a little beyond the jaguar. It was the
head of a man swimming desperately towards the nearer bank.
Will Pentelow was interested enough now. The jaguar also had seen the
swimming man, and with a low snarl started in pursuit. There was little
chance of the swimmer gaining the bank before the beast. Even if he
did, it would merely be to fall a prey. Flinging the rope into the
bottom of the boat, Will pressed the lever. The little vessel started,
and, assisted by a four-knot current, rapidly gathered way. But the man
and the jaguar were also helped by the current, though they were
swimming diagonally across the stream. They were so near to each other
now that Will doubted whether, at the full speed of the engine, he could
overtake them in time to intervene. If he fired, the spreading of the
shot would injure the man as well as the beast. Our observer would
certainly have concluded that the swimmer was doomed.
Suddenly, however, the boat shot forward with marvellous velocity. The
bow, or rather the platform at the forepart, rose clean out of the
water, and the vessel seemed to skim along the surface. Fast as the
jaguar was overhauling the man, the vessel was still faster closing in
upon the jaguar. Will steered straight upon the tawny head. The boat
appeared to fly along.
Hitherto the jaguar had been so intent upon his victim as to be
oblivious of all else. Even the whirring of the propeller had not
struck upon his senses. But when no more than three yards separated him
from the man, he became suddenly aware that he in his turn was pursued.
He turned half round, to see a rushing monster almost upon him. In
another instant there was a heavy thud; the boat quivered from stem to
stern, but with no perceptible slackening of speed passed clean over the
spot where the animal had been.
A few moments more, and the hydroplane was floating on the water like an
ordinary boat. Looking back, Will saw the swimmer scramble up the bank.
Almost opposite him was the jaguar's head, bobbing up and down on the
surface. The impact of the vessel had broken the creature's back.
Immediately the Indian caught sight of it, he rushed along the bank in
pursuit. The animal disappeared, but emerged again a few yards lower
down. Then the man drew a knife from his belt, and plunged into the
river. A few strokes brought him level with the carcase, and catching
it by the ear, he drew it after him to the bank.
Meanwhile Will Pentelow had turned his vessel round, and, driving her
against the current, came opposite to the Indian just as he reached the
bank. The ground was steep and slippery, and the man was unable to drag
the huge body out of the water. Will glanced all round with a caution
born of familiarity with this haunt of caymans; but reflecting that the
hydroplane would have scared away any of the dread reptiles that might
have been lurking near, he threw out an anchor, and waded to the
assistance of the Indian. Together they heaved the carcase out of the
water and threw it on the bank. Then they looked at each other.