THE TYPHOON
“TROUBLE surely is hovering over us!” grimly mused Tom Swift, as he
leaped out of bed and hurried into the pilot house, where he found
Peltok and the two machinists gathered.
“Can you speak the language of these bandits?” asked Tom of Peltok. For
that the advancing Chinese were bandits there was little doubt.
“Oh, yes, I can talk to them. But it will do little good, I fear,” was
the answer. “They make it a practice to capture foreigners whenever they
can, to hold them for ransom.”
“And they’re likely to capture us unless we can rise soon!” exclaimed
Tom. “Can we?” he asked the machinists.
Brinkley shook his head while his companion said:
“It will take about two hours more to fix that carburetor and adjust
it.”
“Then we’ve got to fight!” said Tom. “All right, if they want that they
can have it! Get out the guns, Ned!” he cried. “Peltok, you man the
ammonia tubes. Hartman, you——”
“Wait a minute!” advised Peltok. “I think if we drive the machine on her
wheels in the direction of these bandits they may scatter. They are not
as intelligent as the Yellow Gypsies. We can run on land with only one
motor. It will be better than starting a fight, for it will take only a
few bullets to damage the machine beyond repair.”
“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “But do you think we can bluff ’em?”
“It’s worth trying,” Peltok answered. “I’ll give them a word of
warning!”
He leaned out of the pilot house window and shouted something which, as
Ned said later, sounded like the back fire of an auto. The oncoming
Chinese, none of whom were mounted, halted and talked among themselves.
“I told them,” said Peltok to Tom, “that you would mow them down as a
typhoon mows down a rice field if they did not scatter.”
“What did they say?”
“They expressed some doubts, but I have them frightened. If you’ll start
the machine and open the cut-out so the muffler isn’t working, I think
they’ll run.”
“Better that than shooting them,” declared Tom.
It did not take long to start the land motor, and when the engine was
warmed up Tom opened the cut-out, and such a staccato, rapid series of
explosions resulted as to make it sound like a battery of machine guns
in action.
There were surprised shouts from the bandits, and some of them started
to run. A few however held their ground.
“Shave her nose right into the midst of them!” advised Peltok. “But run
slow, and knock them down gently. Since the propellers are aft they will
do no damage.”
So Tom, guiding the craft, put her in motion toward a knot of the
scowling Chinese bandits, some of whom seemed about to fire with their
antiquated guns.
But when the bandits saw the powerful craft headed straight for them and
when the foremost in the line were gently but effectively bowled over,
rolling out of the way of the wheels just in time to save their lives,
it was too much for the spirit of the rascals.
With cackling, shrill cries they turned and fled, and in a little while
the plain was cleared of them. At this Tom Swift was well pleased, for
he did not wish to take life, even of a bandit, if he could avoid it.
“Might just as well keep right on with the land motor,” advised Ned when
the way was clear before them. “We can get to some place better fitted
to stand off an attack than we were back there. And we’ll be delayed a
bit yet, sha'n’t we?”
“I’m afraid we can’t get that carburetor tuned up before to-morrow
morning,” Hartman reported. He was an expert on this particular part of
a gasoline motor. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get to some place where
we’d have a hill at our backs,” he added.
“All right,” agreed Tom Swift, so he guided the craft for several miles
across the treeless plain until they reached a plateau which they
thought would be a good place to stop.
“Now, boys, make the best time you can on that carburetor,” begged Tom
of his mechanics when they were again at rest. It was decided that it
would be wiser to lay to until the repairs were completed, rather than
to try to make distance by traveling on land. The _Air Monarch_ was not
at her best climbing hills.
Though the delay fretted Tom, there was no help for it, and as the
afternoon wore away and nothing further occurred to disturb the party,
they had visions of taking off early in the morning and heading once
more through the air on their course.
“An hour’s work in the morning, and we’ll be all set,” announced Hartman
as he and the other two mechanics, weary with their labors, sought some
much-needed rest. Peltok, who was a nervous, restless man, said he would
stroll about a bit before turning in, and as Tom and Ned sought their
bunks they saw him walking off in the darkness.
In spite of his anxiety over the delay, Tom Swift was soon asleep. How
long he had slumbered he did not know, but he was suddenly awakened by
some one shaking him and in the dim light of a small electric lamp in
his cabin he saw Peltok bending over him.
“What is it?” asked Tom, starting up. “Is it morning? Are we going to
leave now?”
“I don’t know whether we can leave or not,” was the answer. “We are in
great danger. Listen. I walked out this evening and, most unexpectedly,
I came upon a place where the _Red Arrow_ is hidden in a glen.”
“The _Red Arrow_?” cried Tom. “You mean Kilborn’s ship?”
“Yes. She is right near-by, and I believe he and his men know we are
here. But that isn’t the worst. Kilborn has hired a band of Chinese
bandits to attack us just before sunrise, disable our plane, and capture
us!”
“Are you sure of this?” gasped Tom.
“Very sure! I crept near enough in the darkness to overhear all the
details. Kilborn was talking to the bandits through an interpreter, and
I heard all that was said. The bandits are angry because we repulsed
them this morning, and they are eager for revenge. They promised Kilborn
to attack us in force, to wreck our machine and to carry us off.”
“The dirty rascal!” cried Tom. “What can we do?”
“If we could finish those repairs and be ready to start up before they
got here, we’d trick them,” said Peltok. And when Ned, who was aroused
by the talk, heard what was in prospect, he too, advised the same thing.
“Then we’ll do it!” decided Tom. “I hate to route Joe and Bill out of
bed again, but it’s got to be done.”
Never a word of protest came from the two mechanics as they sleepily
rolled out of their berths, and, with the help of Peltok and Tom, while
Ned managed a flashlight, went to work adjusting the carburetor and
fitting it in place.
“Now we’ll try it,” said Hartman when, toward morning, the last of the
adjustments were made.
“But if we start the motors and they don’t work,” objected Ned, “won’t
those bandits, who must be camped near here and waiting, hear them and
come to the attack.”
“We’ve got to chance it,” said Tom.
Luckily, just as they began to make the test a violent storm, with heavy
thunder, came up, and the sound of the motors’ exhausts were drowned in
the furious rumbles from the sky. The bandits heard nothing of the trial
of the airship’s machinery and, to the delight of Tom and his friends,
the carburetor functioned perfectly.
“We’re ready to go up now!” announced Peltok, as the first rosy tints in
the sky denoted the coming of dawn. “Everything is all right. We’re
going up!”
“And here come the bandits!” cried Ned as, through the windows of the
pilot house, he saw a crowd of Chinese advancing.
“Lively!” ordered Tom. “It’s going to be touch and go!”
The motors roared as more gas was turned on. The _Air Monarch_ trembled,
seemed to cling for an instant to the earth, and then she began moving
rapidly.
A cry of astonishment and rage burst from the bandits, who had not
expected this. It was rapidly getting light. Tom was in charge of the
controls and, waiting only until the craft had acquired sufficient
momentum, he pulled on the elevating rudder handle.
“There’s Kilborn!” shouted Ned, as he caught sight of the rascal who had
come out to see how his plot worked. He was yelling something, though
what it was could not be heard, and he seemed to be urging the bandits
to rush up and grab the airship before it could get fully off the earth.
But now the motors were warming up. The nose of the craft lifted. In
desperation Kilborn yelled and waved his hands wildly. One of the
bandits, directly in the path of the plane, made a jump and grabbed a
rope that had, inadvertently, been left dangling. He caught it and was
lifted up in the air.
“We’re taking him with us!” cried Ned, leaning out of the window to
observe.
“That’s his lookout!” said Tom coolly.
But the Chinese bandit had no relish for being taken from his home in
this strange fashion. With a yell, he let go the rope when he was ten
feet up, and down he fell.
“Wow!” yelled Ned, with a laugh of delight. “He got his all right!”
“Who?” asked Tom, who was guiding the plane up higher and higher, out of
danger.
“Kilborn,” was the answer. “That bandit fell squarely on top of him, and
they both went down in a mud puddle! Oh, baby!” and Ned chuckled in
delight while grins of satisfaction spread over the faces of the others.
Tom looked down in time to see the discomfited pilot of the _Red Arrow_
picking himself up from beneath the bandit, his clothes dripping mud and
water, and then the _Air Monarch_ shot on her way.
The remainder of that day was one void of excitement. They traveled in
the air over the vast extent of China, making only one descent to get
some oil, as a leak developed in one of the reservoirs, allowing much of
the precious fluid to drip away. They had a little trouble with the
Chinese authorities in the city where they landed. But this was not due
to any scheming on the part of Kilborn. It was just a local “squeeze”
custom, and Tom had to pay out money for graft. But he said he did not
mind as long as he was ahead of the _Red Arrow_, and he felt sure that
he was.
It was the middle of the next day, when they were about to leave the
region above land, once more to sail over water, that Tom observed the
barometer falling.
“Does it mean anything?” asked Ned, as he saw the serious look on his
chum’s face.
“A storm, I’m afraid,” was the answer. “And a storm here, in the region
of the Japan Sea, is anything but pleasant.”
“Bad?” asked Ned.
“The very worst,” was Tom’s reply. “But we may be able to get above it.”
He increased the speed of the motors and headed the _Air Monarch_ in a
different direction. But the glass continued to fall. The sky soon
became overcast and there was a dead calm, as they could tell by looking
down on the surface of the sea, which was as flat as a mill pond.
But not for long.
Suddenly there was a puff of air that swerved the craft, powerful as she
was, to one side. Then came a howl as from some mighty siren whistle.
Tom, who had given Peltok charge of the steering wheel, sprang to aid
him as the spokes were almost torn from his hands. At the same time the
young inventor cried:
“Typhoon! Typhoon! It’s going to hit us hard!”
Then, in spite of all efforts to keep her nose up, the airship began
shooting down toward the surface of the sea that was now lashed into
foamy waves by the power of the awful wind!