THERE SHE BLOWS!
TOM SWIFT for a moment was torn between duty and ambition.
His machine was winging along at wonderful speed and he was beginning to
make up for much time lost. To slow up, descend and rescue these two on
the raft meant more delay—a delay that would be dangerous to his
chances of winning the prize. He did not know how many or what other
ships, whether of the air or the sea, containing his rivals, might be
ahead of him or close behind.
But it was for only a moment that Tom hesitated. He gave one look down
at the despairing, helpless men on the raft and cried to Ned:
“We’ll go down!”
Ned knew, as well as Tom, what this might mean.
As the young inventor sprang into the motor room to give the order to
Hartman, who was on duty, he practically gave up all hope of winning the
race. Yet he had no regrets.
There was another thought that came to Tom as he told the surprised
Hartman what was about to be done and mentioned the raft with the
shipwrecked ones on it. This was the problem of caring for the two
castaways when they were taken aboard the _Air Monarch_.
“There’s hardly room for them,” reasoned Tom. “Their added weight will
hold me back, even if I’m able to make up any of this lost time. And we
haven’t any too much food. Didn’t have a chance to lay in any at the
camps of the pirates and head-hunters,” he grimly reflected.
But he did not hesitate, and a little later two very thankful, but much
wondering, men were being taken aboard the airship. They were thankful
for their rescue but surprised at the manner of it.
“We thought some steamer might pick us up,” said one, “but we never
counted on something coming out of the sky to do it.”
“Sam thought I was out of my head when I told him an airship was
coming,” remarked the other.
Tom had sent his craft slowly over the water on her pontoons as close as
he dared to go to the raft, and the men had leaped into the sea,
swimming the intervening distance, since it would take but a slight bump
from the jagged edges of the raft to puncture the frail body of the _Air
Monarch_.
Once on board, and again riding through the air, Tom listened to the
stories of the castaways. They were part of the crew of a small lumber
schooner that had broken up in a terrible storm. For more than a week
the men had been drifting about on the raft which had been made from
some of the deck load of lumber. Five of their companions had been
washed off, and one, in delirium, had leaped into the sea and was eaten
by sharks. The two who were left had only a little food and water
remaining when they were saved.
“I’m sorry that I can’t take you men all the way back to San Francisco
with me,” Tom said, when the two had been made comfortable in temporary
bunks and given some extra garments in place of their wet and storm-torn
ones. “But I’m trying to win a race. How would it do if I landed you on
one of the Hawaiian Islands? I’ve got to stop there for oil and gas.”
“That would suit us fine, Captain,” said Sam Stout, while his companion,
Frank Madler, said:
“We can easily get another ship there.”
So it was arranged, and Tom, still with a faint hope in his heart that
he might at least come in a good second if not the winner of the world
race, turned on a little more power and headed for the east. There lay
the United States, and once over that territory there remained only the
last part of the flight—across the continent.
The motors of the _Air Monarch_ were not behaving as well as Tom liked,
and he had an idea it was due to the poor quality of the last gasoline
he had put into his tanks. He dared not use the last of his super-fuel,
but he hoped in Hawaii to get some better than the last.
If worse came to worst, he thought he could finish the race in his
_Airline Express_ craft, but he wanted to do it in the _Air Monarch_. It
would be much more satisfactory, he told Ned, who agreed with him.
It was only half a day’s travel from where the shipwrecked ones had been
picked up to the harbor of Honolulu, and it was about mid afternoon when
Ned, who was on watch, gave the cry:
“Land ho! All out for Hawaii!”
The beautiful islands were looming ahead of them through the mist.
Quarter of an hour later they made out Diamond Head and knew they were
close to Honolulu, the chief city of the territory.
Tom was in the pilot house, prepared to make a landing, if such a term
is permissible when one means to drop into the water. He had headed the
craft for a spot somewhat outside a harbor, intending to taxi up into it
to avoid the shipping when, suddenly, Sam, one of the shipwrecked
sailors, who was looking from the pilot house window, pointed to a spot
directly in front of them and cried:
“There she blows!”
“What?” asked Tom, though a second later he realized what was meant.
“A whale!” cried the sailor. “There she blows, and you’re going to bump
right into her!”
Tom tried desperately to shift the wheel and, at the same time to
elevate the airship to pass over the monster of the deep. But they were
now so close that it seemed impossible. With the motors shut off the
sound of the whale’s blowing could be heard and each moment the vast
bulk became plainer. If the airship hit that mountain of flesh she would
be instantly wrecked!