CHAPTER XX
RESCUED
RESCUED
RESCUED
The native uttered a low, warning sound, and touched the arm of the young aviator. Dave was absorbed in studying the singular being on the roof of the structure, but at a glance he saw a street guard approaching. He knew that the movements of his companion urged him not to arouse any suspicion. He followed him as he turned away.
Our hero took a final view of the pillar-like building and its surroundings. He tried to fill his mind with landmarks so he could locate it again. Not, however, by the land route. Dave Dashaway realized that the biplane must play a part in his plans if he hoped to succeed in the rescue of young Deane.
“What does it mean—the strange situation of my friend?” was Dave’s first question, after he and his guide had returned to the trading post.
Adasse spoke for a long time in his native tongue to Dave’s guide. Then he explained:
“Your friend is a perpetual prisoner on the roof where you saw him.”
“But for what purpose?” inquired our hero.
“A true devotee must not touch an evil bird; it is contagious, they think, nor a sacred bird either,” continued the Russian; “it is sacrilege. The duty of your friend is to keep the unclean birds away from the sacred pillar in the daytime. At night he feeds the sacred birds with honeyed dates. They know the food is awaiting them and come nightly.”
“He is there alone, then?” asked Dave.
“He lives always on duty on that roof,” replied Adasse. “There, I suppose, he has a shelter of some kind, probably a tent. There is a grating in the roof. Through this his food is probably passed to him. Beyond it and around the pillar are constantly armed guards.”
“You have done a great deal for me,” said Dave gratefully. “I must leave you now.”
“I shall forget all you have told me,” observed the Russian, significantly; “except that it has been pleasant to entertain a friend of my partner. There is nothing I may do for you?”
“There is this,” replied the young aviator—“Mr. Adrianoffski has given me the address of an agent fifty miles west of here. I wish you would explicitly direct me to him.”
After receiving and memorizing his information, Dave proceeded at once to rejoin his friends. The native insisted on going with himas far as the hill. When they parted he handed Dave a basket bag. Then through signs and grimaces he tried to indicate the gratitude he felt towards the restorer of his precious prayer mill.
It must have been after midnight when Dave reached the summit of the hill. He found Hiram seated near theComet, armed with one of the rifles the machine carried. Elmer lay asleep on the ground.
“All safe and sound, eh?” commended the young airman, in a pleased tone.
“Yes, we haven’t been discovered or visited,” reported his loyal assistant. “We began to wonder what kept you away so long, though.”
“Wake up, Elmer, and I’ll tell you both all about it,” announced Dave.
His two friends listened with the intensest interest to his narrative. Hiram glanced curiously at the basket bag as Dave spoke of it.
“Wonder what’s in it?” questioned Elmer.
“I’ll find out,” suggested Hiram.
It proved to contain over a dozen packages. These were wicker covered porcelain jars. Removing their covers, Hiram smacked his lips with satisfaction as he sampled their contents.
“Say,” he gloated, “just sample these dainties! Why, it beats homemade molasses candy all hollow!”
All hands did some “sampling.” They found preserved ginger, honeyed dates, some melon rind finely flavored—in fact a series of native confections as toothsome as they were rich and novel.
“What’s the programme now, Dave?” inquired Hiram, the spell of feasting concluded.
“Morris Deane, of course,” responded the young airman, promptly.
“To-night; right away?” asked Elmer.
“We must lose no time getting on our route,” replied our hero. “It seems to me that we have been most fortunate in meeting the people who have assisted us so grandly in locating the man we are after. I feel positive I can find the structure where I saw Deane. Its roof is large enough for a safe descent. Get ready, fellows.”
“Say, it will be a great feather in your cap if you get this Mr. Deane safely away from there; won’t it, Dave?” spoke Hiram.
“I hope to do just that,” replied the pilot of theComet, confidently. “You can imagine what joy his friends will feel to have him restored to them.”
“Especially that pretty little miss who drove up to the hangar near Washington in that automobile, Dave,” suggested Elmer, mischievously.
TheCometwas in starting trim, and the young aviators took their places. The air and the breeze showed ideal conditions for an easy flight.
There was clear moonlight, but Dave counted on the city being asleep. As he neared it, however, the bright lamps on the top of towers and temples caused him to take to a high area to avoid being discovered.
Circle after circle he described in a narrowing course, at last making sure that he had located the structure he had visited with the native. He indicated this to his comrades. All of them were infused with suspense and expectation.
The expert young aviator hovered over the structure. He estimated time, distance and risks. TheCometmade a superb dip. It skimmed the parapet of the pillar and landed silently on the roof. In doing so, however, one of its wings tipped over one of the many ornate lamps lining the sides of the enclosure.
Dave sprang from the machine, his eye fixed on a small skin tent at one corner of the roof. Glancing within it, he saw lying upon a mat the man the native had pointed out to him six hours previous. Our hero seized his arm and shook him.
“Quick Mr. Deane!” he called out. “We are friends—friends from your people.”
Startled and confused at the suddenness of the waking up, the pillar sentinel sprang to his feet. He seemed about to rush towards the grating in the roof to sound an alarm.
“Look, look,” continued Dave, rapidly, producing the picture of Edna Deane. “It is your sister! She sent this as a token! Quick, now!”
“Dave, make haste!” called out Hiram, sharply. “There’s something wrong!”
The young airman almost dragged the bewildered captive across the roof. He acted in a great hurry, for something had emphasized Hiram’s warning cry. A series of yells rang through the grating in the roof. Beyond it a man was dancing up and down in frantic state of excitement.
The pilot of theCometat once decided that this must be some watchman or sentinel. He had discovered the arrival of the airship. Now he was shouting out the news of his discovery, probably to others within the structure.
Another cause of alarm was an incipient blaze directly on the roof. The lamp that the wing of the biplane had overturned had spilled its contents. The oil had ignited, some rugs had taken fire, and the blaze had caught a canopy near by. TheCometitself was menaced by the rising blaze. Dave reached the machine and gave rapid orders to his assistants.
“Get in, quick!” he directed his companion, but the rescued captive was too overcome to act for himself. Hiram helped pull him over into his own seat, vacating this and getting into the storage space behind it.
Dave got to the pilot post at once, and glanced back. Elmer was flapping back the encroaching flames with a robe. Just then the grating in the roof was unlocked. Up through it came a dozen native guards.
But for the fact that these men were so startled at the unusual scene presented to them, theCometand its passengers might never have left the mystic city of Lhassa. Thrown off their mental balance by a sight of the unfamiliar machine, the guards stood staring helplessly about and then rushed forward to extinguish the fire on the roof.
“That was a tight squeeze,” gasped Hiram Dobbs.
“We’re safe—grand!” cried the relieved Elmer.
The man they had rescued shrank back as theCometarose like some great bird. Just then the loud brazen notes of an alarm bell sounded out. Then some shouts followed the speeding biplane. Leaving a vast turmoil behind them, the airship boys glided off into space, over the city, past its outer walls, making straight west for the haven of safety Dave had in view.
The young airmen did not attempt to converse with the rescued Deane. The latter, thin, pale and weak, was overcome with the excitement of the past few minutes. He sat like one in a daze, staring in marvelling wonder at the receding landscape. He made no move when Elmer belted him into the seat. He could not yet realize his removal from the wretched post of servitude which he had lately filled.
It was a lucky thing for our hero that Ben Mahanond Adasse had given him explicit directions as to the trading post fifty miles away from Lhassa, where Adrianoffski had another partner. It saved time and enabled a direct route, and two hours later theCometdescended to the ground in an open space behind a warehouse on the edge of a native settlement.
“Look after our friend and keep a sharp lookout,” Dave directed his assistants, and left the machine and walked around to the front of the building nearby.
There were no lights or signs of habitation about the place. The young aviator seized a weighted cord suspended from a hook near the entrance to the building. He swung this time and again against the door.
A gleam of light soon showed, and the door was unbarred. A man wearing a fez appeared, a suspicious blink in his sleepy eyes. He stared challengingly at the disturber.
“You are Talzk Prevola?” inquired our hero, at once.
“An English!” exclaimed the man. “I am he whom you bespeak. But what of you?”
Dave produced the signet ring. As before along the journey its magical effect was immediate.
“It is from Adrianoffski,” said the trader. “You are welcome. Enter, my son. The place is yours.”
Dave was sure that the man was Prevola, and he was just as certain that he could be trusted implicitly. He briefly spoke of his acquaintance with Mr. Adrianoffski and the claim he held upon his confidence and gratitude.
“I have a friend,” explained our hero, “who must be conveyed quickly and safely to the nearest railroad point in Russia. He must be taken out of Thibet speedily and secretly.”
“The order of my friend’s friend is law with me,” declared Prevola, gravely. “You but speak, I obey.”
“I will shortly return,” said Dave, and he went out to the biplane and approached it.
“I wish to have a talk with you,” he said to Morris Deane. “Help him out, Elmer.”
The rescued young man was assisted from the machine. Our hero linked his arm in Deane’s in a friendly, reassuring way. He led him to where a pile of wood lay and made him sit down beside him.
“Mr. Deane,” he said, gently, “you understand that we are friends sent to rescue, to save you?”
“I am just trying to comprehend it all,” was the reply, in a wavering tone of voice. “It seems incredible, astounding,” and the speaker passed his hand over his face in a vague manner.
“Try and realize it all,” urged the young airman, “for time is precious.” And then our hero told all that there was to tell.
Each succeeding moment Morris Deane seemed to take in more clearly the extraordinary disclosures the young pilot had to make.
“I never dared dream of escape, of a rescue,” spoke Deane. “And you and your friends have done this noble act! Can I ever show my gratitude? Think of it, that hopeless life at Lhassa, and now freedom—freedom!”
The speaker threw up his hands in an ecstatic way. He looked at his rescuer with tears in his eyes.
“Yes,” replied the young airman, “it is freedom—your anxious father—your devoted sister—a fortune awaiting you and—home!”