BOMBED BY ROCKS
Our friends had landed in the lowlands just to the north of Colombo,
whose scattered buildings contained upwards of a hundred thousand
inhabitants, most of whom were native Singhalese, descendants of the
colonists who came from the valley of the Ganges and settled the island
five hundred years before the birth of Christ. To the southward arose
the rocky headlands of the coast, and to the westward could be seen the
somber peak of Pedrotallagalla, the highest mountain of the island.
Numerous ships, some very crude and with queer sails, were in the
harbor as the boys landed, and scores of natives in short skirts were
loading and unloading these. Undoubtedly the huge square boxes which
some of them carried aboard so easily upon their heads contained tea,
for which Ceylon is famous.
The person in charge of the landing-field here was a Mr. Young, an
American clergyman connected with the local Baptist mission. This tall
gentleman came forward, accompanied by the British governor of the
island, within a few moments after the flyers struck the ground. In
fact, they were still stretching their cramped legs and arms when he
greeted them and introduced the governor, Sir Henry Hurst.
"Young men, I am more than delighted to shake hands with you," said the
governor. "It looks as if you and the other crew over yonder were upon
an epoch-making tour, for you are not ten minutes behind your schedule,
as we have it in the London papers and also in our own Colombian
newspaper. My only regret is that you do not represent England instead
of America." He laughed good-naturedly as he made the last remark.
"It was quite a task for the governor and myself to get up at this
early hour to receive you, but the occasion is well worth the effort,"
observed Mr. Young, smiling. "Here we usually sleep very late, often
as late as nine o'clock. Even the Singhalese and Burghers are not yet
generally up from their beds, though those who work at the wharves have
appeared. If you had arrived a few hours later there would be
thousands of the population here to see you."
"We are well satisfied with the hour, then," said John. "The fewer
natives we have around the Sky-Bird, the better we like it, both for
working and taking off. How long has that other crew been in, sir?"
"Not more than a half-hour. They are taking on their fuel now, being
assisted by a couple of Burghers. They advised us that they would
probably remain here until noon, being tired from their long flight
from Aden. I don't know; why, but the slender man with the dark skin
and mustache particularly requested me to see that you knew this
intention of theirs."
The flyers thought this was rather strange. Why should the _Clarion's_
crew remain so long in Colombo, when their interests in the race
demanded as much time put into flying as possible? It was still more
incomprehensible what object they would have in wishing the Sky-Bird's
flyers to understand this intention, as by so doing our boys could make
their plans to gain a heavy lead.
It was too much of a puzzle for them to work out, so Bob and Paul,
aided by two Burghers (naturalized Europeans), went to work overhauling
the machine and storing fuel, while John and Tom made their way into
town with Sir Henry Hurst to transact their business. When they
returned they found the two younger members of their crew in a heated
discussion with the _Clarion_ fellows.
"What's the matter here, anyhow?" demanded John, as he and Tom pushed
their way through the little ring of natives who had gathered about the
principals.
"It's just this way," said Pete Deveaux, with a grin meant to be very
cool and indifferent, although his eyes roved uneasily; "We fellows
were working on our machine here, minding our own business, when these
two kids of yours came up and demanded to know why we had played you
dirty at Freetown and Kuka. They accused us of purposely carrying off
your share of fuel at Freetown, and of stirring up the natives at Kuka
so you couldn't make a safe landing."
"We simply couldn't stand keeping quiet any longer, John," put in Paul
very heatedly. "We thought it a good time to have it out with these
fellows for their crookedness."
"That's right; they're a bunch of snakes!" supported Bob, his cheeks
red with excitement and anger, and his fists doubled menacingly.
John turned to the slouching figures of the rival crew. "Do you
fellows deny these charges?" he asked quietly.
Crossman, Torrey, and Lane looked at their leader, merely shrugging
their shoulders. Pete Deveaux took a quick glance in their direction,
in turn. Then his face clouded a little darker, and he blurted out to
his men: "You confounded babies, why don't you deny it? You know we
didn't do anything on purpose to hold these guys back!"
"That's right; we sure didn't," said Sam Lane.
"Of course not," added Chuck Crossman.
"Wouldn't think of it," interjected Oliver Torrey.
Our boys were disgusted by the cringing attitude of Pete Deveaux's
cronies. Two of them were larger than the Frenchman, yet they seemed
to be afraid of him. John saw that nothing was to be gained at this
time by continuing the argument, so he pulled his comrades away with
this parting and significant warning to their rivals: "Well, Deveaux,
we'll let this drop now; but we certainly hope that you will take pains
to see that nothing more of so strongly a suspicious character occurs
on this trip!"
Pete Deveaux snarled back some answer which they could not make out.
Our friends returned to the Sky-Bird. In a few minutes Bob, who had
climbed on top of the fuselage to test the helium valves, came down and
said: "Something new is going on over in our neighbor's yard, fellows.
When I was up there I could see right over the natives' heads, and I
noticed Chuck Crossman and Pete Deveaux hunting around the field till
they found half-a-dozen rocks as big as a football, and they put these
in the cabin of the _Clarion_. Wonder what on earth they intend to do
with those?"
"It's too hard a nut for me to crack," answered John.
The others expressed equal inability to discern the purpose of their
rivals, and the incident was soon forgotten.
But twenty minutes later the familiar roar of a revolving airplane
propeller greeted their ears, and they were surprised to observe the
_Clarion_ rising up over the field. They watched the machine until it
had disappeared in the cloud mists to the east. Then they awoke.
All saw the game of their rivals now. By making the Sky-Bird's crew
believe they did not intend to leave until noon, the latecomers would
be inclined to take their time fitting up for the next hop, and this
would give the _Clarion's_ party a chance to make a sudden exit and
gain a good lead before the others could get under way.
There was no getting around it--Pete Deveaux was clever, if he were a
rascal. This our friends had to admit to themselves, despite their
dislike of the fellow. His methods of getting the best of them seemed
to have no limit; and yet thus far they had been able to cling, by the
hardest kind of work, right at his heels. This last trick was more
honest strategy than Deveaux had exhibited before, and they could
therefore admire it in that sense. They hoped that from now on his
maneuvers might be as free from maliciousness.
But their rivals had not fooled them as badly as they thought. Our
flyers had lost no time upon landing in refitting, and when they saw
the _Clarion_ take off, they speeded up operations so fast that they
were able to depart only fifteen minutes later.
Almost straight eastward they headed, bearing just a little to the
southward, so as to strike Singapore on a bee-line. They hoped to
reach this stop some time before dark, which would give them
approximately twelve hours' flying time. Under ideal weather
conditions, they could make the journey in considerably less time, but
it was the season for the well-known monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and
it was quite unlikely that they would be able to wing their way across
the fourteen hundred odd miles of sea without encountering some of
these deterrent trade-winds.
It took them just an hour to cross the island of Ceylon, and flying at
about fifteen hundred feet, they winged their way out over the
whitecaps of the ocean. To their unspeakable pleasure they found the
winds not at all bad, and made good speed. Bob was at the throttle,
Paul was observing, and John and Tom were sleeping.
They had been flying thus for perhaps two hours, when Paul saw that for
which he had been keenly watching for some time. It was a faint black
speck, like a tiny bird, against the blue of the heavens ahead of them.
He continued to watch this silently, after calling his chum's attention
to it, until, under an increase of speed, the Sky-Bird had drawn close
enough for them to observe that it was what they suspected--an airplane.
In another hour they were near enough to recognize in it the
unmistakable outlines of the _Clarion_. To all appearances their
rivals had also observed them, and were crowding on power, for now they
gained much slower. Yet they still continued to narrow the breach
between them, steadily, rod by rod, and minute by minute. They could
see that the _Clarion_ was not well handled, for she wavered in her
flight considerably.
"They'd be wise if they'd throw those rocks out which they took
aboard," commented Paul. "That might help them to fly steadier."
"They're flying all of a thousand feet higher than we are," said Bob.
"We're going to pass under them, I think, in the next half-hour."
That was the way matters looked. The | _Clarion_ was riding high, and
was so close by this time that the windows in her cabin could be made
out. Against those panels of glass our friends felt sure some of the
rival crew were even at that moment pressing anxious faces as they
watched the Sky-Bird steadily creeping up on them.
It was such an auspicious moment that Paul went and aroused John and
Tom, so that they could see the Sky-Bird overtake and pass her
adversary. Those two worthies grumbled a whole lot for a few moments,
being half asleep, but when they grasped the situation and saw the
_Clarion_ just ahead, they were as much interested as anybody.
Slowly, surely the Sky-Bird overtook the rival machine. When it seemed
her nose was almost up to the tail of the _Clarion_, they saw a
movement in the bottom of the fuselage of the craft above them, where
her trapdoor of glass was situated in the floor of the cabin. Then
something gray streaked down through the air. It went whizzing by just
in front of the Sky-Bird, and a few moments later plunged into the sea
with a great splash.
"Huckleberry pie!" ejaculated Tom Meeks, "one of their rocks has burst
through their floor trap. Say, that was a close call for us!"
"Watch out! Here comes another!" cried Paul, as a second gray missile
went by them on the other side.
Barely had it struck the waters beneath, when a third rock came so
close that they could feel the rush of air as it passed downward. It
was as if they were being bombarded by an enemy above, who used great
stones instead of explosives. Their faces paled when the truth struck
them like a thunderbolt. With calm deliberation, deadly intent, and a
skill born of dropping bombs on targets during the war, some of the
fellows in the machine above were trying to wreck the Sky-Bird with the
rocks they had gathered in the field back in Ceylon!
"Quick, Bob!" cried John to their pilot. "Swerve out from under these
devils as fast as you can! If another stone comes down here, it may--"
The words he intended to say never were uttered. At that very moment
another gray object streaked its way down through the heavens, whirling
uglily. They thought sure it would strike the cabin roof and crash
through, and intuitively they cowered back in the corners for
protection.
But their speed carried the stone farther to the rear. There was a
tearing, rending sound.
Their faces blanched. And then Bob called out: "Hi, fellows,
something's gone wrong! The Sky-Bird's bound to put her nose into the
sea. The tail elevators don't work!"