WHIZZING BULLETS
HARDLY had the _Red Arrow_ stopped, some of her men coming out of the
cabin to drop a light anchor, than Tom ran to the prow of his craft,
where there was a little landing stage. Seeing Kilborn tantalizingly
smiling at him, the young inventor cried:
“What do you mean by that?”
“Mean by what?” sneered the pilot of the rival plane.
“By landing so close to me that you nearly grazed my wing tips? Don’t
you know how to make a landing yet? Seems to me there was room enough
for even an amateur!”
Kilborn’s face turned an angry red at hearing this taunt.
“I know as much about running a bus as you do!” he retorted.
“You don’t seem to!” fired back Tom. “After this you keep your
distance!”
“Aw, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” sneered Kilborn.
“Don’t I?” retorted Tom. “Well I think I do! And, what’s more, I have a
strong suspicion that you wouldn’t have cared much if you had crashed
into me. It would have given you a chance to take off ahead of me. But
you didn’t pull your trick, did you?”
“I wasn’t trying any trick!” snapped Kilborn. “And if you accuse me
of——”
“I’m not exactly accusing you,” broke in the young inventor. “But I have
my suspicions and I’m going to watch you. Don’t forget that your tool
Hussy and the fellow with him are still in jail!”
“I don’t know anything about Hussy!” stormed the owner of the _Red
Arrow_.
“I think you do,” was Tom’s reply. “But keep away from me and my
machine—that’s all I ask. I can beat you in a fair race, and I don’t
want any dirty work, nor will I stand for it!”
Tom turned and went back in his ship. The talk was in English of course,
and few of the Portuguese who had gathered about to view the strange
craft knew what it was about.
“He sure tried to foul you,” declared Ned when his chum had rejoined
him. “He had plenty of room to land clear.”
“More than he needed,” agreed Peltok. “That man will bear watching, Mr.
Swift!”
“And we’ll watch him!” replied Tom.
“Here come a couple more of the contestants, I guess,” called Hartman as
he pointed upward, where two specks, like big birds, were observed in
the sky.
“Either that, or it’s a welcoming delegation of Portuguese airmen,”
suggested Tom.
But the first surmise proved correct, and a little later two big
hydroplanes, one piloted by Jed Kimball and the other by Harry Walton,
whom Tom knew slightly, settled down in Lisbon harbor.
This harbor, while not an official landing, since the race was a
go-as-you-please one, was the objective of most of the contestants who
flew eastward in aircraft. Some were not able to cross the Atlantic in
one hop, and were obliged to stop at the Azores. But the bigger
machines, including Tom’s, the _Red Arrow_, and the two to arrive later,
carried fuel enough for the longer journey.
“They’re making almost as good time as you made, Tom,” remarked Ned when
informal greetings had been exchanged with the two latest arrivals.
“Doesn’t that mean they’ll give you a hard rub?”
“You forget, Ned,” said the inventor, “that we were forced down by a hot
bearing and lost a lot of time. Even with that, we beat the other three.
If we did that, bucking the hurricane as we did, it shows we are a lot
speedier than they are, unless they, too, were delayed. We must find out
about that, but we’ll have to be diplomatic. No use letting them know
just how speedy we are.”
While oil and gas, together with some more food and other supplies, were
being taken aboard all four of the competing craft, Tom signaled a small
boat and visited Jed Kimball.
“Run into any bad weather on the way over?” Tom asked casually.
“Not a bit,” was the answer. “Had smooth sailing all the time. And so
did Walton. He and I were close together on the way over.”
Tom’s heart rejoiced at this. It meant that the other craft had pushed
their engines to the limit and had been traveling steadily in clear air,
only to arrive after he did.
“And we lost considerable time,” said Tom to Ned when he was back on
board the _Air Monarch_. “That means we have a lot the best of them. The
only one I’m in doubt of is the _Red Arrow_. I’m not friendly enough
with Kilborn to ask him if he had any delays. If he did, and yet came in
soon after us, it means he is pretty nearly as fast as we are. But if he
came right along without a stop, it means we’ve got him beat.”
“Let’s see if Brinkley or Hartman can’t pick up a bit of information,”
suggested Ned. “They’re going ashore for a half hour, and I notice some
of the _Red Arrow’s_ crew also going to take shore leave.”
“That might be a good way,” agreed Tom, and he instructed the two
mechanics to get into casual conversation, if they could, with the men
from Kilborn’s craft, but, at the same time, not to give a hint of their
own speed.
Hartman and Brinkley managed to get friendly with some mechanics from
the _Red Arrow_, but the information they secured was not the most
reassuring to Tom. It developed that his most formidable rival had also
been delayed by the hurricane, though not forced down, being, however,
blown far off the course.
“Then since he arrived about the time we did,” said Tom, talking the
matter over with Ned, “it means that he’s going almost as fast as we
are. I’m afraid we’re going to have trouble with Kilborn.”
“Do you really think he has a chance to beat you?”
“He has a good chance. The only thing is that if he gets disabled so he
can’t travel in the air, he can’t do very much on the water and nothing
at all on land. I might have him there. But it’s only a chance. We’ve
got our work cut out for us, Ned!”
“Well, then, the sooner we get away from here the better!” suggested the
financial manager, and his chum agreed with him.
The work of taking on the gas, oil and other supplies was hastened, and
at last the _Air Monarch_ was again ready to hop off. The mechanics had
gone carefully over every part of the motors, and they were tuned up to
the highest notch of efficiency.
“Well, let’s go!” called Tom when, about three hours after landing in
the Lisbon harbor, they were ready to leave again.
The motors roared as the gas was turned on when the starters had turned
the flywheels over, and Tom was about to guide his craft down a long,
wide lane of water in the bay when Ned exclaimed:
“There goes the _Red Arrow_!”
Tom turned to see the rival craft making ready to take off, and then he
suddenly shut down the motors and let his craft come to a slow stop
while the other increased her speed and was ready to take the air.
“What’s the idea?” cried Ned. “Has anything happened?”
“No. But something might if I tried to take off just when Kilborn did,”
said Tom quietly. “There’s too much chance of a collision—planned or
accidental. Let him get up—I’ll follow. I can do as I please then. Let
him go!”
It was evident that the _Red Arrow_ had been waiting for the _Air
Monarch_ to lead the way, for just as soon as Tom started the other
craft had followed, and when Tom shut down it appeared to puzzle Kilborn
and his men. However, they must have imagined that it was only a
temporary halt, for they roared on their way, finally leaping into the
air from a foam-crested wave and speeding off ahead of Tom Swift.
“Let him go!” the young inventor said. “I can pass him when I need to.
But I want a clear field.”
A few minutes later Tom started his motors again, and his craft was in
the air shortly before the other two hydroplanes took off. But by this
time the _Red Arrow_ was only a speck in the sky.
“Hope he won’t get too far ahead!” mused Ned.
“I’m not worrying,” declared Tom Swift.
Up and up soared the _Air Monarch_ and when she was high enough Tom
straightened her out and sent her ahead on an eastern course, steering
over Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, the lower part of Italy, and, in
turn, across Turkey.
It was when sailing rather low over a wooded section of this latter
country that something happened which showed Tom how dangerous his trip
might be.
He, with Ned, was leaning out of the window of the forward cabin looking
down below and trying to figure out just where they were when Ned
called:
“Look at the horsemen!”
Below them was a squad of Turks riding along and seemingly much excited
by the airship over them. The motors, though muffled, were making too
much noise for Tom and Ned to hear what the horsemen were shouting, but
their actions were plainly discernible.
Suddenly some of them brought their guns around and aimed up at the
airship.
“Look out!” cried Ned. “They’re going to shoot!”
“Let them!” chuckled Tom. “They must be uncivilized fellows who have
never seen or heard of an aeroplane before. They can’t hit us up here!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” warned Ned. “Better go a bit higher.”
“But I want to see what river that is we’re coming to,” Tom said. “I
need to be low down to make an observation.”
He had hardly ceased speaking when several puffs of smoke came from the
horsemen below, and though the reports of the rifles could scarcely be
heard, there was no doubt as to the firing.
“Duck!” yelled Ned as he caught the hum of whizzing bullets.
Suddenly he saw Tom give a start and fall back from the window.
“He’s hit!” cried Ned, springing to his chum’s side as he yelled to
Peltok, who was at the wheel: “Go up! Go up! We’re being fired on!”