CHAPTER XXIIITHE FORLORN HOPE
Hiram and Brackett joined the young aviator in a rush for the passageway leading to the pilot room. It was from that direction that the cry had echoed.
A sharp, double danger signal rang out from the engine room. There were sounds of distant shouts. The yell was repeated. Some keen intuition drove Dave to the stateroom which had served as invalid ward for the man rescued from the raft.
“Hiram,” cried the young aviator, “Davidson is gone!”
“Why, it can’t be! Say—whew! suppose he’s gone wild, and is rambling all over the ship among that machinery!”
Snap—crack! Following upon the echoes of that second terrific cry, a disturbing thing had happened—every electric light in theAlbatrosswent out!
To add to the confusion and terror of the moment, in the direction of the engine room there rang out a thumping, crashing sound, as if some disjointed part of the machinery was beating things to pieces like a steel flail.
“Stand still,” ordered Dave, sharply, “don’t try to grope about in the dark. It’s no use.”
The young aviator felt his way out into a corridor leading to the supply room. It was a fortunate thing that he had familiarized himself with everything about the place. Dave located a certain cabinet, and opening one of its drawers, took out what he was after—an armful of electric hand lights carrying their own batteries.
“Here, Hiram, Brackett,” he called, flashing one of the tubes. “Take some of these. Follow me. I don’t know that the people in the engine rooms have any way of getting a light. Let us hurry to them.”
“Hold on!” shouted a new voice, and Grimshaw bolted upon the scene. “What’s the trouble?”
“We don’t know, but something pretty serious, I imagine,” replied Dave, quickly. “Take these.”
He furnished Grimshaw with two of the electric tubes. Then Dave led the way to the pilot room. He found Mr. King lighting matches to get some kind of illumination, and as ignorant themselves as to the condition of affairs. The aviator at once led a rush in the direction of the engine room. They arrived at the ante-chamber leading to it to come upon a stirring scene.
A small hand lamp only illuminated the apartment. It contained four men, the professor, two of his assistants, and these latter were holding to the floor and battling with and binding hand and foot a wild, struggling maniac—Roger Davidson.
“He got loose!” cried the aviator, at once reading the situation.
“And in his frenzy has done terrible damage to theAlbatross,” exclaimed Professor Leblance, pale, disturbed and anxious-faced. “It is very serious, I fear. Get him away to the cabin as speedily as you can, and watch him every minute. You, Mr. King, resume your post at the pilot table. Dashaway, hurry all the spare light tubes here.”
There was a shivery, uncertain wobble to the giant airship now. The prodigious construction resembled some monster machine that had received a vital wound. Dave hastened on his mission. As he returned to the engine room he passed Hiram, Brackett and one of the assistants, carrying Davidson back to the stateroom.
Mr. King was at his post at the pilot table, and looked worried and helpless. The electric apparatus of the airship having been destroyed, he could only sit and use the speaking tubes.
Dave found the engine room in hideous disorder. The engine was not in operation, and parts of it were all out of order. The professor and his men were getting a reserve engine in shape. For over an hour, silently, and deeply engrossed in all that was going on, the young aviator placed the light tubes as directed, and brought this and that tool and machine-fitting to the workmen as Professor Leblance ordered.
Dave saw the new engine started up. The professor held a long, whispered conversation with one of his men. Then he beckoned to Dave and led the way to the pilot room.
The Frenchman sank into a chair there, his face gray and careworn. They were three anxious ones. Leblance passed his hand over his eyes wearily, as if he had gone through a terrible ordeal.
“Well?” said the aviator simply.
“That maniac threw an iron bar into the machinery. He has ruined everything,” announced Leblance.
“But the new engine?”
“Can only operate the rudder control. The entire mechanism is practically destroyed, my friends. I must not conceal from you that the situation is desperate, dangerous, almost hopeless!”
“But we are still running, Professor?” submitted the aviator.
“With one forlorn hope in view.”
“Of reaching the end of our voyage?”
“That we can never hope for,” declared the Frenchman, in a gloomy tone.
“Then—what?” bluntly demanded the aviator.
Leblance arose to his feet, running one hand over his eyes with a swift movement as if to restore impaired vision or brush away tears. He proceeded to a map attached to the wall just above the pilot table. His fingers traced the course already traversed by theAlbatross.
“We are here,” he said, halting the faltering index. “Ahead, observe, is an island. It is two hundred miles southwest of the coast of France. We may possibly reach it by exhausting every utility we possess. If we do not, within the next forty-eight hours——”
The professor shrugged his shoulders slowly, sadly this time. An expression of ineffable solemnity crossed his noble face.
He pointed down as if indicating unknown depths waiting to swallow them up. Then he again ran his finger across the map, pausing at that little dark speck that marked the island.
“A change of wind,” he said, “a single break in the apparatus, a trifling leak, and we are at the mercy of the mishap of our lives! That island—it is our last forlorn hope!”