CHAPTER XIII
THE MISSING AIRSHIP
Horrified and aghast at the foul deed which had been done, the passengers and crew of the air-liner, who had left the gondolas at the cry of consternation which went up, now crowded around the fallen prince. Even those fierce sons of the desert who witnessed the dire act could not restrain an involuntary shudder, but they merely shrugged their shoulders, or remarked: "Kismet! It is the will of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful," and after some such invocation, their piety appeared to be satisfied, for they immediately returned to their treasure.
The captain and his friends were loud in their protestations and imprecations after their first and futile attempts to rouse the prostrate man, for they believed him to be already dead. They glared at the pseudo caliph, who appeared to be entirely unmoved by the heart-rending spectacle. And if, at that moment, any weapon of offence had remained in their possession, it would certainly have been turned upon the offender, whom they now regarded as a murderer.
But every weapon had been carefully removed from the air-liner and her complement; even the unmounted machine-gun and the one box of ammunition placed aboard on her first voyage, were now in possession of the bandits.
The captain in particular was furious, and he turned upon the German fiercely, shook his fist at him and cried, "One day you will pay for this, sirrah! The arm of Britain is long enough to reach you!"
A mocking laugh was the only reply which the German gave. Then, looking once more at his jewelled watch, he signified that the time for the airship's departure had almost arrived.
"Three minutes more and I shall cut her adrift," he said.
"But the maharajah?" asked the captain. "What can we do with him; we cannot leave his body to the vultures."
"Bah! Take him away with you. He will live again in seven hours; it was only morphine!"
Bewildered, but yet relieved by these words, they quickly ascertained that the prostrate man was not actually dead, and they hurriedly placed him aboard the airship and administered emetics.
"Let us get him away at once," urged the Indian judge; "perhaps the higher altitudes will quickly dissipate the effects of the morphine."
"Are you ready there?" shouted the caliph, who had ridden with his escort up to the central gondola.
"Yes," came the response.
"Then remember, the next time that you invade my dominions without my permission you will not escape so easily. As you know to your cost, the King of the Hamadian desert is able to defend himself and his people, even from the insults of a great power."
The captain made a slight bow, half ironical, in response to this kingly assertion, and asked,
"Is there any communication which your majesty would like to have delivered to my Government?"
"Yes," replied the monarch, drawing from under his loose robe a sealed packet, which he appeared to have had in readiness for the occasion. It was addressed as follows:–
"To Colonel John Tempest, D.S.O., M.C..
Chief Commissioner of the British Aerial
Police, Scotland Yard, London,"
and across the top left-hand corner it was marked "Confidential," and also "To be delivered personally by the Captain of the Air-Liner, Empress of Britain."
The skipper, apparently bewildered for a moment by this strange request, for it seemed to him like a letter from a condemned man to his executioner, looked the packet over for a few seconds. Noting the great red seal on the back, he read the imprint embossed on the huge wafer. It read as follows, and was circular in form:–
"From Sultan von Selim, Air-King of the Hamadian desert," and the crest was a scorpion, with the solitary word in Latin, "Scorpio."
The caliph waited patiently until the captain had examined the exterior of the packet, and recovered from his amazement, and then said, "Before you depart, Captain, you must promise me that you will deliver that packet in person to Colonel Tempest, who is not unknown to me."
The captain did not answer for a few seconds, for he was wondering what new conspiracy was this. He was wondering also whether the conveyance of this packet was not after all the real reason for the forced descent of the airship.
"Do you promise, Captain?" asked his interrogator, looking at him fixedly.
"Yes, I promise."
"On your honour?"
"On my word of honour, I promise to deliver it."
"Then good-bye. I will 'wireless' the patrols to look out for you."
"Thank you," replied the skipper acidly.
And the next moment, seeing that only his own accomplices and reputed subjects were left on the ground, the Sultan gave the order, "Let go!"
So the huge cable was slipped, and the leviathan left her moorings at once. The north-west wind carried her clear of the trees, and, as she had left nearly two tons of her most precious cargo behind, she rose rapidly, then started falteringly on her long journey to Cairo as her two remaining Sunbeam-Maori engines burst into life.
The sun, which had shone with pitiless might upon the Arabian desert that day, was sinking like a huge red ball beneath the horizon when the great air-liner, drifting considerably from her course, but still making progress in her journey towards Cairo, disappeared from the watchers' view.
With strange impartiality, inexplicable in such a robber-bandit, the spoil had been divided amongst the Bedouins, who, to their bewilderment and surprise, were now rich, each one of them, beyond the dreams of avarice. Their gratitude to Allah, the Giver of all Good, and to the great white sheik was unbounded. Never before had their greedy eyes beheld such treasure; never before had they gained a prize so easily; and some of them even wondered whether, after all, Mohammed had not appeared to the Faithful once more in the person of the great white sheik.
Long before midnight, however, the last man, with heavily-laden beast of burden, had disappeared, swallowed up, as it were, by the very sands of the desert, so that, when the full round moon approached the meridian and changed the gold of the desert to silver, not a vestige of man or beast remained. And of the camp, only a few ashes marked the spot where once a fire had burned. The Scorpion, too, had taken its departure for an unknown destination, carrying its mysterious crew far, far away from these burning sands, for the indomitable commander knew only too well that the captain spoke truthfully when he said that the arm of Britain was very long, and could even reach to this wild desert land.
Before his departure, however, Heinrich von Spitzer had sent off his promised message in laconic terms to the Cairo patrols. It ran as follows:–
"Air-liner Empress with damaged engines crossing desert towards Cairo. Lat. 29-50 N., Long. 40-25 E. drifting W.S.W. Wireless deranged. SCORPIO."
"Piece of bad luck, sir!" remarked the commissioner's assistant at Cairo when he received the message.
"H'm! She carries the Indian mail, too," replied his chief.
"Yes, and a good deal more, sir."
"What else does she carry this trip besides passengers and mails?" asked the alert commissioner.
"That big loading of specie, sir, for the Bank of England. Nearly a ton of gold, I believe."
"Phew! And isn't the maharajah of somewhere or other coming on a state visit to the King also?"
"Yes, by Jove, so he is! We had a message this morning saying that he would travel by the Empress."
"Heaven help us if she comes down in the desert with that cargo. The Bedouins would soon make short work of it. The authorities rely too much upon the patrols for these long journeys," said the commissioner.
"We were asked to take particular care over her this trip. The Delhi patrols accompanied her part of the way, and she was all right up to mid-day, but she hasn't spoken to us since. I have sent out one or two messages and have had the patrols ready to go out and meet her, as soon as I heard again from her, giving her position, sir."
"And you've had no further reply till this message came in?" asked the chief.
"No, sir."
"By the way, is her wireless damaged as well as her engine? I didn't notice."
"Yes, sir. The message says: 'Wireless deranged,'" replied the assistant, re-reading from the aerogram.
"Then who the deuce sent the message?"
"Scorpio– But who Scorpio is I can't make out. It must have been some passing airman, for it cannot have been one of our own patrols."
"Phew! The mystery deepens. Get the patrols out at once, and tell them to take plenty of ammunition with them. It will take a few rounds to scare off those Bedouin fiends if once they get round a carcase where there are such pickings."
"I don't think there's much to worry about in that respect. Those Arabs have a wholesome fear of these air-liners, sir. However, I will get the machines off at once."
CHAPTER XIV
BETRAYED BY THE CAMERA
The order was quickly given for the aerial police scouts to start. Within a few minutes the patrols left Cairo and the adjoining air-stations, and, spreading out fan-wise, they crossed the Canal, the Gulf of Sinai, the wild mountainous peninsula which bears the same name, and the Hedjaz coast, until they entered the desert regions beyond. Then they commenced their search by moonlight for the battered and drifting air-liner over the trackless, desert lands which lie between the 28th and the 30th parallels.
By a pre-arranged system of Very lights, the patrols kept each other informed of their exact positions during the night, and watched keenly the eastern horizon for any response which might come from the belated airship.
Meanwhile the air-liner, fighting manfully against the freshening wind, made very slow progress, and drifted still further and further away from her course. The air was full of wireless messages both from Cairo and the patrols, but she was as yet unable to reply and define her position. The engineer and wireless operator, however, had been able to receive some of the messages indistinctly, and they knew at any rate that help was not far away.
The captain was naturally very much depressed by the turn of events. Somehow he felt that he had not acted very heroically in the matter. He had considered the safety of his distinguished passengers perhaps too much.
"If I had had no passengers to consider, I would have remained aloft until the whole liner had been shot to ribbons!" he declared to himself, when he at last retired for a few minutes to his private cabin. "They should never have taken me alive! But there, my instructions stand–the safety of the passengers and crew before anything else. I was a fool, though, to act as I did. I ought to have sent out the S.O.S. to Cairo without a second's delay, instead of arguing with this brigand; but there, whoever expected to encounter anything like this?"
Then as his thoughts turned to the wonderful machine, he endeavoured to docket all the information he could remember about the brigand's aeroplane, for he knew that he would be expected to recount every detail when he met the court of enquiry, "which," he murmured, "is as certain to take place as to-morrow's sunrise.
"Gee whiz! Three hundred miles an hour, and silent engines to boot! Phew! nobody will believe me, anyhow. Still, I shall have to face the music, and also to explain why I have lost a hundred thousand pounds of specie," and the skipper looked down on the white sands below, and for a moment he almost contemplated suicide.
"I wouldn't mind if I could only bring sufficient information to the authorities to lead to the speedy capture of the villain, but I can't. There wasn't time even for a photograph. The bandit was aware of all that, and I understand that every camera was removed from the airship before he let us go."
At that instant there came a slight tap at the cabin door.
"Come in!" cried the commander, expecting some further report from the sick-berth steward about the condition of the maharajah, who, half an hour ago, was said to be showing signs of recovery, owing to the bracing air at three thousand feet.
The door opened, and Gadget, the ship's mascot, appeared. Now Gadget's newest hobby was photography, and through the kindness of the photographic officer he had become the proud possessor of a small pocket camera.
"I got her, sir! Thought you'd like to see her … begging your pardon," and Gadget, with his dirty, but sunny, smiling face stopped short and pulled his lock of hair by way of salute, as the captain pulled him up sharply by snapping out:–
"Got whom? Like to see whom, Gadget?"
"The 'Clutchin' Hand,' sir," explained Gadget, who now found himself floored for once by his want of English.
"I don't understand, boy?"
"The bloke what played the dirty on us, sir," replied the boy, opening wide his bright blue eyes, and holding out three wet and recently developed pocket films.
"Him what got the swag, sir," continued the urchin, endeavouring to make himself clear.
"Oh, you mean that you photographed the brigand!" replied the skipper as he caught sight of the negatives, and snatched at them eagerly, a new light coming into his eyes.
"Yessir!" exclaimed the lad. "Him what said he was a King of the Desert."
"Gadget!" exclaimed the captain, after a brief examination of the films, which were really three fine, clearly defined pictures of the Scorpion, showing her in mid-air, when alongside the Empress.
"Yessir," replied the excited youth, not yet certain whether he was going to be hanged or praised for his offence.
"You have shown more wit and skill than anyone on board the airship. You shall be well rewarded for this, I promise you. How on earth you managed to get three good snapshots like these, all showing different angles of the machine, and to hide them away, is beyond me!"
"Thank you, sir! Thought you'd like 'em," and the boy's eyes sparkled even more than ever as the captain shook him by the hand, and planted five new, crisp Bradburys therein, then dismissed him.
"Great Scott!" exclaimed the captain, "but that little urchin's saved my reputation. These photographs may prove of more value to the authorities than the lost treasure. I feel a different man. Here is extraordinary evidence against the culprit. One photograph shows the fiend actually firing a burst at the twin engines in the rear gondola, and another the faces of the two occupants above the fuselage. They will show more evidence still when they have been enlarged." And the captain, after carefully drying them, placed them in an envelope and put them into his inner coat pocket, muttering:–
"Smart little beggar! I wish I hadn't punished him the other day for smuggling that tobacco aboard."
The captain, who had left strict instructions that he should be called half an hour before the end of the watch, in order that he might relieve the navigating officer, was just about to lie down on the couch for a brief spell, when suddenly another knock at his cabin door startled him, and immediately after his servant entered and announced: "Seven bells, sir."
"Already?" exclaimed the captain.
"Yes, sir."
"Has the moon set, yet?"
"Yes, it is quite dark now, sir."
"All right. Tell the navigating officer that I'll be down in one moment."
At this very instant the telephone bell which connected the cabin with the navigating gondola rang furiously. Snatching up the receiver, the captain asked, "What's the matter, Donaldson? Is there another raider on the starboard bow?"
"No, sir, but there's something very much like a signal flash away in the north-west."
"Sure it wasn't a shooting star?"
"More like a Very light, sir, but very faint," replied the navigating officer. "Shall I reply, sir?"
"Yes, give him three red lights. I expect it's one of the patrols looking for us. I'm coming down now," and the captain replaced the receiver, and made haste down the corridor which led to the chart and navigation room.
The next instant three red balls of fire fell from the airship earthwards in rapid succession, and within a couple of minutes a faint gleam of greenish light fell like an arc in the north-western sky.
"Yes, the patrols have found us, sure enough," exclaimed the captain, who had now joined the officer.
After several further exchanges of fire-balls, repeated now from two or three quarters, the searchers closed in upon the straggler. Then a rapid dialogue took place by means of the morse lamp, and, when dawn came, shortly afterwards, no less than six fighting scouts, running at about a quarter throttle, surrounded the wounded leviathan, and escorted her towards Cairo.
When the Empress reached that town, she was already twenty-four hours overdue at London, so the cables and the wireless stations were busy with messages relating to the missing liner, and with more than one inquiry as to the safety of her cargo, evidently from the consignees, or more likely still, from the underwriters.
And when the captain told his story to the Commissioner of Aerial Police at Cairo there was another mighty stir, and both the cables and the wireless were busy again, for the whole civilized world was tingling with excitement to know something tangible about this man of mystery–the phantom airman. And the story of Gadget's photographs was told to the world.
CHAPTER XV
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND
While the events recorded in the last few chapters were taking place, a series of adventures not less exciting and perilous had befallen the two airmen, Keane and Sharpe, in their endeavours to track that ingenious conspirator, Professor Rudolf Weissmann, in his secret retreat within the dark recesses of the Schwarzwald.
After their midnight consultation with Colonel Tempest at Scotland Yard, their instructions were to proceed early next day, by whatever aircraft was then available, to Germany, and once there to adopt some suitable disguise, and institute forthwith a most rigorous search for the secret aerodrome. They were to leave no stone unturned in their efforts to track down this great German irreconcilable, who had dared to hold a pistol at the civilized world, and to bring back, if possible, some tangible clue concerning his two great discoveries.
"Time is short," the colonel said. "Immediate action on our part is vital. Spare no expense in the venture, and if necessary you must even proceed to extreme measures to capture this daring outlaw and his accomplices."
"And what about this phantom aeroplane?" asked Keane. "Apparently it has already left the Schwarzwald on its piratical expedition."
"It may return, and you must watch for it. Some of those scattered inhabitants of the Black Forest are sure to have seen or heard something of it. Its trial trips must have been carried out somewhere in the vicinity."
"They are a simple and primitive type of people who still inhabit those forest wastes; wood cutters, lumbermen, makers of little wooden clocks and musical boxes, most of them, I believe," added Sharpe, who had often traversed those regions as a British spy during the Great War.
"Then they should be easier to handle," added the commissioner of aerial police, who had a ready method of brushing away apparent difficulties. "I am compelled to rely almost entirely upon your efforts. Take your pocket-wireless telephones with you and a sufficient quantity of German gold and silver, and start directly you have had a few hours' rest."
"We will get away immediately after breakfast, sir," replied Keane, who had already made up his mind as to how he should proceed in the matter, for he had fixed up his jumping-off ground for the Schwarzwald, and also the type of disguise he intended to adopt.
"Good-bye, both of you, and may good fortune attend you!" said the colonel.
"Good-bye, sir."
Big Ben was striking three o'clock as they left Scotland Yard and made for their quarters, which were in that part of London known as The Adelphi, a quaint, old-fashioned ensemble of buildings of the Georgian period, overlooking the Thames, not far from the Watergate. A few minutes later they bade each other good-night, and turned in for a few hours' sleep before their long flight across England and France.
At seven o'clock they were breakfasting together in a private room overlooking the river, and discussing the details of their coming adventure.
"The Schwarzwald!" Sharpe was saying, as he helped himself to another egg and a rasher of ham. "Where do you think, now, we had better start from, Captain Keane?"
"Mulhausen," replied the other promptly, for with Keane the initial procedure was already cut and dried.
"Mulhausen? Capital! I was thinking of Strasburg, but your idea is better still. Is there a good aerodrome there where we can land?"
"Yes, on the banks of the little river Ill, which runs into the Rhine a little lower down. And once across the Rhine we are already in the Black Forest, though we shall still have a long tramp to the place which I suspect," added Keane, pouring out another cup of coffee.
"Oh, yes, I remember the place; the aerodrome is near the junction of the Rhine-Rhone Canal," replied his companion.
"You've got it, exactly. Now we must get away; it must already be seven o'clock, and a fine morning to boot. What says the weather report about the Channel crossing?"
"Here it is," exclaimed Sharpe, passing a copy of the Times across to his friend, who turned over the pages and read as follows:–
"Flying prospects for to-day:–South-east England and Continent, including the Channel crossing, favourable for flying for all types of machines till mid-day, after that conditions will deteriorate, squalls and heavy rains will predominate, visibility will be poor, and conditions will become unsuitable for cross-country flying."
"Good! Then we must get away at once," observed Sharpe, and within another five minutes they were being hurled along towards Hounslow, the aerodrome from which this new adventure was to begin.
Forty-five minutes later a couple of S.E.9s, the fastest machines in the service, rose from the flying ground and steered a course east-south-east for the Straits of Dover. Thirty-five minutes later, the necessary signals having been accepted by the Dover patrols, with throttles wide open, the two daring young aviators rushed the Channel at one hundred and fifty miles an hour.
The French patrols having been informed by Dover, permitted them to pass unchallenged. And now changing course till they steered almost due south-east, they sped onwards, catching now and again a glimpse of the old battle-front of the days of 1914-1918, where the shell-marked craters of the Hindenberg line were still visible from the air.
Then they followed the railway line from Laon to Rheims, left the ancient town of Nancy to their left, and, crossing the Vosges Mountains and forests a little to the north of Belfort, they dropped down quietly to the landing ground outside Mulhausen in Alsace, as the clock in the Market Square struck the hour of noon.
Having left their machines and flying gear in charge of the commandant, they entered the town, purchased a portable camp outfit, and, dressed as tourists of the pedestrian and naturalist type, continued their journey, crossed the Rhine and entered the Schwarzwald, ostensibly to study the fauna and flora of the Black Forest.
"Phew! I'm tired of this load. Let us camp here for the night, by this little clearing, where these seldom trodden footpaths diverge," said Keane, some hours later, as, weary and dusty with his three hours' tramp through the bracken and the tousled undergrowth, he threw down his heavy knapsack and nets, and began to wipe the perspiration from his forehead.
Then they lit a small fire of dried twigs, cooked their evening meal, and lit their pipes.
After a quiet smoke, during which time they carefully re-examined a survey map of the Schwarzwald, they began to talk in low whispers, whilst the sun descended amongst the pines on the western heights, over which they had dragged their weary feet.
"It is my opinion," whispered Keane, "that we are within five miles of that secret aerodrome."
His companion nodded, almost drowsily, although every faculty was kept constantly alert.
"It is just possible that one of these paths leads to the very spot, but it will be necessary to explore them both. We must be extremely careful, however, for this professor is sure to prove a wily opponent. I hope, however, some wood-cutter or peasant may pass this way soon, and that we may learn something from him which will help us," continued the senior airman.
"What if the wood-cutter should prove to be the professor himself?" asked Sharpe, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes.
"It is even possible," returned his companion.
"In that case it would be diamond cut diamond, Keane, eh?"
The other shrugged his shoulder at the very thought, and prayed that such a contingency might not happen, at any rate until something tangible had first been discovered.
"In three hours it will be midnight," he said. "If no one passes this way by then, I think we must carry out our search in the dark. Time is pressing; we must find something within another forty-eight hours, or poor old Tempest will be at his wit's end, and calling us home again. He cannot leave us long on this trail."
"The greater the pity. A fortnight is not too long to follow a trail like this," said Sharpe.
"Yet you had to do things pretty smartly in those dark days of 1917 and 1918, Sharpe."
"Yes, and there was some danger and excitement attached to it, which sharpened one's wits."
"Never fear! There'll be both before we have finished this trek," returned Keane.
"Hist! What was that?" said Sharpe in an undertone, as he caught the sound of broken twigs.
"Someone approaching," whispered his companion.
They listened acutely now, with every sense keenly alert. Again they heard the sound, and it seemed to come from the western side of the open glade, where the last dull glow of the sunset still revealed the edge of the forest.
The camp fire had died down to a smoulder, but Keane instinctively held his ground sheet before the dying embers, lest their presence should be betrayed. He was anxious to learn something of the nature of this visitor before he revealed himself.
"Bah! It is some creature of the forest," observed Sharpe, after a moment's hesitation. "A wild boar or a red-spotted deer, most likely."
He was right, for the next moment a series of grunts proceeded from the spot whence came the sounds, and, as though suddenly startled by the consciousness of some human presence, the beast, a fine specimen of the Sus Scrofa, with fierce protruding tusks and long stiff bristles, broke cover, trotted swiftly across the glade, within thirty yards of the two watchers, and entered the forest on the other side.
"So much for that little incident," muttered Sharpe, as he released his grip of the Webley pistol, which his right hand had instinctively grasped, when the dark shadow broke from the margin of the trees.
Keane shook his head as though he disagreed with his companion, and remarked in a low voice, "The creature was evidently startled or it would not have fled like that. Its scent is very keen, and as the wind is blowing from the west, it suspected danger from that quarter."