CHAPTER X
THE BRIGAND OF THE EASTERN SKIES
"Someone has signalled us to stop, Captain!" said the wireless operator.
"Who is it?" demanded the irate skipper.
"He will not declare himself, sir!"
"Hand me that receiver, Robson!" and the commander, clamping the ear-piece of the wireless telephone to his ear, asked of the intruder, "Who are you that thus dares to order me to stop on a lawful voyage?"
"It is I, Sultan von Selim, Air-King of the Hamadian Desert, who orders you to stop!" came the reply from the aerial raider, who now rode just a little way above the large airship, and on the starboard side.
"Then I refuse!" thundered the skipper.
"You will do so at your peril," came the quiet, cool reply, which rather disconcerted the captain.
"I will call up the patrols, you brigand!" continued the commander of the liner.
"One word to the patrols and I will blow your wireless to pieces. I have two guns already trained on it," replied the air-king.
"I dare you to do it!" replied the brave skipper. Then, turning to the operator, he said, "Send the S.O.S. with the latitude and longitude to the patrols. Smartly there, Robson."
"Yes, sir."
"This is that raider we heard of at Delhi, but he can't touch us."
The raider, however, had caught the sentence, or part of it, and he understood the order. The next instant a burst of fire from a machine gun, trained with wonderful accuracy, blew the main part of the wireless apparatus to pieces, and rendered it perfectly useless for either receiving or transmitting. How the captain and the operator escaped injury or death will for ever remain a mystery.
Seizing a megaphone, the former dashed out of the cabin, down the keel corridor and the narrow slip-way, to the central touring gondola on the starboard side, and, shaking his fist at the raider, who sailed calmly alongside about a hundred feet away, shouted through the instrument: "You brigand! You shall hang for this!"
A mocking laugh, drowned by the roar of the engines, which still continued full speed ahead, was the only reply. Evidently this mad airman was enjoying the fun immensely. At any rate he appeared very careless of the other's threats.
"I mean it, you felon!" roared the skipper.
"Are you going to heave to?" came the the reply through the raider's megaphone.
"No, certainly not!"
"Then you must take the consequence!" came the mocking taunt, and the next instant, "Rep-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!" came another burst from that deadly machine-gun, which seemed so effective every time it spoke.
This time the starboard engine, a 250-H.P. motor, conked out entirely, and, for a moment, there was danger of fire in the gondola, owing to the petrol-feed being smashed in the general break-up.
This made the captain think furiously. He now recognised, for the first time, that he was absolutely at the mercy of this strange highwayman of the air. Evidently he was a determined character, a master criminal, and the skipper looked round for some means of defence.
There was certainly an old machine-gun aboard the airship, but it had never been used and was not even mounted, for it was believed that a peaceful trader would never need it. The police patrols constituted the real defence of the trade routes, and even with them a few smugglers were the chief offenders.
The captain's eyes were fixed for the next few seconds on the wonderful machine which sailed along so easily and so quietly. Once, he had noticed, when the raider made a circuit of the great liner, that the machine had shot ahead at twice or thrice the speed of the Empress. The armoured conning-tower, over the top of which the heads of the pilot and his companion could just be seen, gave the skipper an impression of strength, against which he knew that even if he could have replied with a machine gun, the bullets would have pattered harmlessly against the sides, and fallen away like rain-drops.
He was in a quandary, this brave air-skipper. He had missed his chance of calling up the patrols. Yet, how could he, a British captain, surrender to some foreign marauder, or perhaps even to a British renegade; for he knew not as yet who this bold fellow was. Then he thought of his passengers, those distinguished guests committed to his charge, and last of all of the valuable lading: that consignment of gold for the vaults of the Bank of England.
"By heaven, it's the gold they're after!" he exclaimed. "I never thought of it before. They've had the news ahead of us and they've waited for the airship in this out-of-the-world spot. Confound them, but they shan't get it if I can help it!" and the captain nerved himself to still further resistance, though he felt it was hopeless, unless some outlying patrol should come up quickly.
The raider seemed to have read his thoughts, for he sailed close up again, and shouted through his megaphone, "For the last time, Captain, will you heave to?"
"No–o!" the courageous man replied, though this time his voice wavered a bit, for he wondered what devilry the stranger would attempt next.
He had not long to wait, for the pirate suddenly banked his machine, turned swiftly outwards, and circling round till he came up level with the great twin-engine in the rear gondola, which drove the giant propeller near the rudder, he opened once more a terrific burst of fire which instantly put both engines out of action.
This almost brought the huge liner to a stop. At any rate, she now made more leeway than headway, for the only remaining engines which could now be used were those in the foremost gondola and port centre cabin.
"Stop!" signalled the captain to the remaining engineers in charge of those engines.
And the next instant the huge, looming mass, with her engines silent, lay there helpless, levering away to windward, shorn of her pride, and with the wreckage hanging loose from her rear and central gondolas.
Another surprise that now awaited the crew and passengers of the air-liner was to see the phantom raider careering wildly around the beaten giant at enormous speed, in almost perfect silence, though his two propellers raced wildly as he dipped, spun and rolled to celebrate his victory, and to show off his amazing powers to the victims.
"Good heavens!" ejaculated the captain as he watched all this. "It was only too true, then, what we heard at Delhi."
"You mean about the silent engines and the speed of three hundred miles an hour," added the navigating officer, who now stood by the skipper.
"Yes. It's some amazing conspiracy. I cannot help admiring the rascals, though I should like to hang the pair of them."
"Hullo! here he comes again. I wonder what he wants this time," and the next instant the raider throttled down, and came close up to the gondola, shouting as he did so in perfectly good English:–
"Start that port engine, please, and bring her to earth by that cluster of palm-trees over there."
"What more do you want with us?" replied the captain.
"I must see your passports, and examine your cargo for contraband."
"Eh, what's that?" exclaimed the amazed commander. "What does he want to examine our passports for?"
"We haven't any," remarked the navigating officer.
"And why the deuce is he to search for contraband, I should like to know?" groaned the skipper.
"Did you hear what I said?" called the raider, who now appeared to be getting angry at the delay.
"Yes," growled the other.
"Then bring her down at once, and let out that mooring cable!"
And as there was no apparent help for it, and not a single patrol had yet hove in sight, the captain of the liner reluctantly complied, wasting as much time as he dared in the operation.
CHAPTER XI
THE AIR-KING'S TRIBUTE
Far down below, the Arab sheik and his party, ambushed amid the waving palms of the oasis, had watched with keen and eager eyes this thrilling encounter in the heavens between the phantom-bird and the great leviathan. To them it seemed impossible that the aeroplane, sometimes diminished by distance to a tiny speck, could overcome the mighty airship.
As the fight continued, and they heard the rat-tat-tat of the machine-gun, sometimes their doubts and fears overcame them, and many were the cries that went up to Allah the Compassionate, the Faithful, etc. But when they saw that at last the great white sheik had won and the disabled liner was slowly coming lower and lower, their pent-up feelings gave place to wild excitement, and shouts of,
"Allah be praised! The bird of destiny has won! The great white chief has triumphed!" while others, more practical, and also more piratical, exclaimed: "Allah is sending down the treasures of heavens into the lap of the faithful. Praise be to Allah and to Mohammed his Prophet!"
It was with some difficulty that Max restrained these wild men from dashing out in their frenzy to capture and loot the huge, lowering mass that now loomed but a little way above them. He began to fear that they would not wait for the pre-arranged signal, and he urged the Arab sheik to restrain them, and to repeat the orders that the occupants of the airship must not be touched.
Nearer and nearer came the huge mass, steering badly and veering round in attempting to gain the lee-side of the trees, lest she should be totally wrecked in the mooring. Two hundred feet of cable suddenly dropped from her bow, and, when it touched the ground, Max gave the signal, and with a wild shout these fierce Bedouin horsemen suddenly broke from cover, and galloped into the open.
"Ye saints!" gasped the Indian judge, when he beheld this wild tournament of galloping horsemen, brandishing their rifles and long spears. "Are we to be eaten alive?" Less than an hour ago he had expressed a pious wish to visit this peaceful garden in the desert; now, it was too near to be pleasant.
"All hands to the cable!" shouted Max in Arabic, and very quickly both horses and men were struggling with the stout hawser.
"This way," shouted the Gotha pilot. "Take it round and round these three trees; they should stand the strain unless the wind gets stronger," and selecting a small group of trees on the leeward side of the grove, he very quickly had the cable made fast in such a way that the leviathan of seven hundred feet in length swung easily head to wind, like a ship riding at anchor and swinging with the tide.
Then the tribesmen, kept well in hand, surrounded the prize, keeping some thirty paces distant, for they had not yet quite overcome their fears. Never before had such a thing been seen resting on the yellow sands of the Hamadian Desert.
As the gondolas of the Empress of Indiacame to rest quietly on the ground, the Scorpion descended in a rapid spiral, touched the sands lightly and taxied up to the fringe of trees.
Then, to the utter amazement of the occupants of the dirigible, some of whom were already descending from the gondolas, a couple of men, wearing the loose flowing robe of the desert, including that distinctive mark of the Mohammedan world, the fez, leapt from the machine and approached the airship.
"Snakes alive!" ejaculated the colonel; "but what have we here?" his eyes fixed upon the two men.
"Some person of note, evidently," remarked his friend the judge, as he saw the foremost of these individuals mount a richly caparisoned horse which was held in readiness for him, and approach in a dignified and almost royal manner.
"This king of the desert is evidently some European renegade who is challenging the right of other nations to cross his domain without his permission," said the soldier.
"He is some daring pilot, at any rate," replied the justiciary.
"I wonder now what he intends to do with us," observed the other.
"Why, he intends to plunder us, of course," replied his companion. "What else could be his motive?"
The captives were not long to be left in doubt as to the proceedings of this daring freebooter. Raising the megaphone which he had used in the air so effectively, he shouted in perfectly good English:–
"Abandon airship!"
And to make this order immediately effective, the desert king ordered Max to see that every member of the great liner, passengers and crew, were immediately assembled before him. The navigating officer and the captain were the last to leave the vessel; they did so unwillingly, and not without a measure of compulsion at the point of a revolver. The skipper's looks as he fixed them upon this desert freebooter astride the fiery steed, conveyed to the brigand much more than mere words could have expressed.
Fixing him with his keen, malicious eyes, the pirate said: "Are you the captain of this vessel?"
"I am," replied the skipper in surly tones.
"Show me your bill of lading."
"Bill of lading?" echoed the captive. "You must hunt for it if you want it."
The self-styled king of the desert frowned. He knew that he was up against an English skipper, and that he must adopt other measures to gain his end. Without lifting his gaze from the commander of the air-liner, or flinching a muscle, he replied firmly, "One word from me, Captain, and your life would be forfeit. You would swing from that tree by one of your own cables."
"I know that, brigand," replied the prisoner. "Get a cable and carry out your threat; the rope that will hang you is not so very far away, either."
"Very well," exclaimed the German. "Then, I need only give the order to these, my faithful subjects, and the whole of your valuable cargo will be strewn on the sands, and your airship will be alight. I do not propose to adopt those measures unless you compel me. I will give you five minutes to decide." As the pirate uttered these words in a cool, nonchalant manner, he glanced at the European emblem on his wrist, a gold, gem-studded wristlet watch with luminous dial.
"I deny your right to interfere with a peaceful trader," blurted out the captain, when he saw the full force of the two alternatives which had been offered to him. He was wondering, moreover, how much the brigand knew about the presence of the specie on the vessel.
"You deny my right, do you?" returned the other.
"Yes. Who are you?"
"I am Sultan von Selim, Air-King of the Hamadian Desert. I told you that once before when I first challenged you in the air."
"Who made you king?" snorted the captain.
There was silence for the space of ten seconds, during which time the brigand consulted his watch again, then replied:–
"The Allies made me king, particularly you verdammt English when you drove me from my Fatherland with those impossible peace terms. King I am, and king I will remain, of all the aerial regions where I choose to abide, until there comes a better man who can beat me in the air. And you, Captain, of all men, must know from what you have already seen that my powers in that realm are considerable."
The captain, having cooled somewhat after this outburst, had to admit to this German irreconcilable that there was certainly some truth in his statement about being king of the air. Certain things were beginning to dawn upon this English captain, and he was now wondering how far it would be wise to humour the brigand. He added, however, to his admission, the following words, "You are only king by might!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed the outlaw, "but that also is some admission. My position is precisely that of the British in India or Egypt. Withdraw your soldiers from these two countries and what becomes of your government there? So am I King of the Hamadian Desert till a stronger man comes. When that time comes one of us must die. There is no room for two kings, even in the desert. Till then I am supreme. But come, captain, four minutes have passed already. Your bill of lading, quickly now, for we are but wasting time, and these my subjects"–and here the brigand waved his hand towards the restive Arabs–"or rather I should say my customs' officials, are waiting to examine your cargo, and to levy the king's tribute."
The captain looked around first upon his own followers and then upon the impatient Bedouins–the vultures around the carcase.
"I could have brought your ship down in flames, but I preferred a milder method," continued the outlaw, as he watched the seconds of the last minute being ticked away on his jewelled watch.
"But helium will not burn!" returned the captain smartly. "That was beyond your powers."
A mocking, sardonic laugh came from the robber chief as the Englishman uttered these words.
"Would you like to see it burn?" he almost hissed.
The captain faltered in his reply; he was not quite so decisive as he had been. Evidently there was some sense of humour, if not much, about this irreconcilable German.
"Here, Carl!" cried the bandit. "Detach one of those nineteen ballonettes from the airship."
"Yes, sir," replied the subordinate, stepping up to the king and saluting smartly.
"Take it away to leeward there, and show this dull Englishman how he may learn chemistry and science even from inhabitants of the Hamadian Desert. Here, take this, you will need it," and the chief handed to his assistant a small cylindrical tube with which to carry out his orders.
Turning next to the Englishman, he observed, "Know, you dullard, that a small admixture of a secret gas, which is known only to three living men, will make your renowned helium flare like hydrogen. You shall see it in a short space of time."
"Recall your man, I will take your word for it, Sultan!" exclaimed the captain, who now felt that it must be so, for he was already bewildered by the strange things which he had witnessed that day, and he had no desire to see this experiment carried out.
"You believe me, then," returned the air-king, who seemed particularly to relish this interview with the Englishman, especially with this group of celebrities within earshot, for they had listened eagerly to every word which he had spoken. And the German knew that though his days might be numbered, as indeed he felt they were, yet his fame would be greatly enhanced by the episodes of this day, for vanity was not the least among his failings.
Once more he glanced at his watch; for the allotted space of time had nearly run.
"How now, Englishman!" he exclaimed in a harsher tone. "The bill of lading, where is it?"
The chief purser, receiving the captain's nod, at once advanced towards the regal horseman, handed him a bundle of papers and said: "Here, sir, is the document you desire."
CHAPTER XII
THE MAHARAJAH'S CHOICE
A dramatic episode followed the examination of the airship's bill of lading by the pseudomonarch and his so-called chancellor of the exchequer, Carl, who aided his master in the task.
"Item one. What does that consist of?" asked the brigand.
"Mails. His Britannic Majesty's mails," replied the chancellor.
"Where from?"
"From India for Egypt and London," replied Carl, maintaining a grave and solemn deportment.
"H'm! They may pass when the usual tribute is paid," remarked the bandit in serious tones, as though he had delivered himself of some weighty pronouncement.
The judge looked at the colonel with raised eyebrows when he heard this strange decision, but the captain, forgetting his position for a moment, blurted out:–
"Tribute indeed? When did the King of England pay tribute for his mails to be carried across the Hamadian desert?"
The air-king eyed the speaker with apparent amazement, mingled with a touch of scorn and pity, then quietly observed:–
"That is the very point, Captain. There has been far too much laxity in this respect in the past. The liberties of the small nations to make their own laws, and possess their own lands in peace, have been greatly endangered of late. It is mere brigandage for a great power to over-ride the native interests of small communities. But from to-day this brigandage must cease, at any rate over the territories where I rule."
The captain could find no reply to this sally of the desert king's, and, while a smile played about the corners of his mouth, he looked beyond this robber chief, in his gaudy trappings, to where the Scorpion lay squatting like an ugly toad upon the sands.
At length the monarch resumed his cross-examination with these words: "Come, Captain, will you pay tribute for the transit of mails across my territory, or will you not?"
"I will not!" replied the skipper.
With a flash of fire in his tones the brigand ordered: "Take the first ten sacks of mails out into the desert and burn them at once."
"It shall be done, O chief," replied Max, who immediately detailed some of the natives to carry the order into effect, when the captain, urged to it by the judge, asked:–
"What is the amount of the tribute?"
"Ten thousand pounds in English gold," came the immediate reply.
"I cannot pay it," returned the captain. "It is mere plunder," though the judge pointed out to the commander quietly that it would probably be more profitable to pay it and to get away with the mails in a damaged airship, than to leave the mails behind to be lost or destroyed in the desert.
"He will take the gold anyhow, when he comes to it on the bill of lading," added the colonel, "though devil a penny I'd pay him."
"It isn't my money," argued the captain, "so there's an end of it."
"How now, Englishmen! We are wasting time. Will you pay the sum demanded?"
"No, I will not!"
"Very good. Get out the rest of the mails and burn them at once!" ordered the monarch, and a couple of minutes afterwards the first bags of mails, sprayed with some inflammatory liquid, were blazing furiously.
"Item two!" called the desert king.
"Gold. Nineteen boxes of bullion for the Bank of England," called out the chancellor.
"Gold?" echoed the air-fiend, as though he were utterly unconscious of the presence of such a commodity, in face of the captain's refusal to pay over a trifling ten thousand pounds to secure right of way for his mails.
"Yes, sir. Nearly one hundred thousand pounds in specie."
"I thought we had prohibited the importation of gold into these regions, chancellor, because of its evil effects upon the minds of the people."
"Yes, sir," returned the chancellor. "We decided to abolish its importation altogether on that account, save only as tribute money for the royal chest."
"Exactly," replied the bandit, in a tone of assumed moral injury. Then, turning to the Englishman, he said: "You must know, Captain, that most wars are caused by gold, and by the unbrotherly strife which it foments. You must know also that all wars are sustained by it."
"Yes, I agree with you for once," returned the prisoner, boldly, wondering at the ease with which this confirmed brigand could turn moralist.
"Then what must be done with the gold, sir?" asked the chancellor.
"Every ounce of gold on the airship must be confiscated," exclaimed the king of robbers as he uplifted his hands in pious horror. "Let it be removed at once."
"Very well, sir," and this second operation, which was more pleasing still to the waiting Arabs, was immediately put into effect.
"Item three!" called out the chief.
"Ten boxes of valuables, including the personal property and belongings of one of the passengers," came the reply.
"What, do they belong to one person?"
"Yes, sir."
"What is his name?"
"The Maharajah of Bangapore, sir," returned the wise man of the exchequer, whose task promised to be an easy one in the future, judging by the vast amount of spoil which had already fallen into his lap.
"The Maharajah of Bangapore?" repeated the monarch, raising his hand to his forehead for an instant, as though he would recall some long forgotten episode. "Is he amongst the company present?"
"I believe so."
"Ask him to stand forth."
And the Indian prince, hearing his name called in English, stepped forth and confronted his old enemy of the Mesopotamian campaign. When their eyes met a flash of fire, more eloquent than words, revealed what was in each man's mind. The prince expected to be tortured to death and was prepared for it, for, like all his people, he was brave as well as fierce. At last the robber spoke.
"Prince Jaipur, you are an enemy of mine," he said.
"I know it!"
"Do you expect mercy after the way your tribesmen massacred my men at Kerbela?"
The maharajah shrugged his shoulders, but disdained to reply to this upstart robber chief who styled himself a king.
"Do you know that your life is in my hands?" exclaimed the bandit fiercely.
"I am not afraid of anything you can do, brigand!" hissed the prince, and his voice sounded not unlike the angry, venomous snake in the jungle. Another man might have quailed before those glaring eyes and those hissing tones. But the German quavered not.
"I will give you a kingly choice," he said, "as you are the scion of half a hundred kings in your illustrious line."
"I ask no favours of a common Bedouin robber," snarled the other.
"Listen. I will give you the choice of drinking this deadly poison, or of being dropped ten thousand feet from my aeroplane. Which will you take?"
The prince shuddered slightly, and glanced up into the cloudless blue, as though anticipating what such a death might mean, then looked at the small phial which the brigand held forth in his hand.
"Yes, ten thousand feet!" continued the German, as he noted the anxious look which overcast the Hindoo's face for an instant, as he gazed up into the sky. "Then I will loop the machine, and, with your hands pinioned, you will be thrown out and drop, drop– Which will you choose?"
"I will drink the poison," replied the prince, who had now regained his usual composure.
"Very well. Let him be securely tied to that tree to await our pleasure," and the maharajah was instantly seized by three or four powerful Arabs, and secured to a tree some twenty paces away.
"What about his valuables, sir?" asked Carl.
"Have you examined them?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what do they consist of?" asked the king.
"His jewels, his gold and silver plate, studded with rare gems of priceless value. They are worth five times the value of the specie," whispered Carl.
"And what else? You said there were ten boxes."
"Part of his regalia and numerous ceremonial robes."
"They are all confiscated!" announced the monarch. "The sun will set in another two hours, and at sunset the Indian must die."
"There is nothing else, sir, of much value. All the gold and this personal property has been secured. Here is the list of passengers, for there are scarcely any passports held by the strangers," and here Carl, who had paid a visit to the aerial, whispered something to his chief.
"Good! Then, in your opinion, chancellor, sufficient tribute has now been obtained from these strangers who have crossed our territory without permission," said the bandit aloud for all to hear.
"Yes, sir."
"Then let them board the airship at once. She will be cast adrift in ten minutes."
At this there was a scramble for the gondolas, and very quickly all, save the captain and the navigating officer, were aboard. The judge and the colonel, however, prevailed upon by the maharajah's men, descended again to intercede for the life of the Indian.
"You have taken the man's jewels," said the colonel. "At least you might spare his life."
"You may have his body," remarked the airman, "but he must first drink the phial," and a stern look appeared once more in the robber-bandit's eyes. On this point he was unbending, and remained like adamant.
"The airship is ready now, sir," said the captain, making a final appeal for the life of the maharajah. "I should like to report, at any rate, when I do complete my journey, that all my passengers are safe, though I expect to be two days late with only two engines and this beam wind. Once more, will you release the Indian?"
"Bring him before me!" commanded the monarch at last, with a bored expression, and the Indian, still bound hand and foot, was brought before the pseudo king.
"Unloose his hands," came the order.
"They ask me to spare your life, Indian dog!" continued the robber, addressing the prince in contemptuous tones. "If you sue for it yourself, you may have it, otherwise…" and, instead of completing his sentence, the speaker shook the little phial in the face of the prisoner.
"I will not ask my life of you, serpent!" hissed the captive. "From you I will accept no favours. Robbed of my family heirlooms, my jewels and my household gods, I prefer to die. Give me the poison, and I will show you how a real prince of the royal line of Indus can die!"
For one awful instant, the desert chief glared at his enemy, who had dared to refuse his generous offer. Then, in angry tones, he cried:–
"Indian dog! I offered you mercy, but you spurn the gift of Allah and ask for death. Then take this and drink it!" and he tossed him the phial.
"Stay!" cried half a dozen voices from amongst the group of passengers.
But their expostulations were in vain, for, with an eagerness to hide his disgrace in death, which only a proud oriental can show, the prisoner caught the phial, withdrew the small cork, and drained the contents before his horrified friends could interfere.
The next moment, the body of the maharajah lay prostrate upon the sands of the Hamadian desert.