It is a week after the race and the Hempstead Plains cup proudly reposes in a place of state in the Chester boys' home. On the morning in question the boys and their chums are getting ready for a test of Frank's pontoons, which, as our readers know, he had already begun to figure on as soon as Bluewater Bill had unfolded his strange tale of the Golden Galleon of the Sargasso.
In a quiet bay on the north shore of Long Island the tests were to be made, and a launch had been engaged for the occasion. At the commencement of this chapter our readers are to imagine the boys on a train speeding toward Lone Cove, where they plan to embark. In the baggage car are the "pontoons," which in reality are two cylinders of aluminum, about twenty feet in length by three in diameter and capable of sustaining a weight of almost a ton. To the bottom of each, Frank had riveted a thin "keel" of manganese bronze with a heavy fin of lead affixed to it. This was to give stability in the rough waters they ran a chance of encountering on the outskirts of the Sargasso.
A space of about two feet at each end of the pontoons had been partitioned off, so as to form four tanks in which water and gasolene could be stored. Caps screwed over vent-holes provided opportunity to insert a small pump when it was necessary to draw on the emergency supplies or water ballast thus carried.
Lone Cove, a small sand-bordered inlet off the Sound, was reached after a run of about two hours and the tanks—boxed in long wooden cases so as to avoid the scrutiny of any villagers who might prove too curious—were transferred to a wagon and carried to the small wharf where the Ocean Spray, the launch the boys had chartered for their experiments, lay at anchor.
Her owner, an old beachman, at once turned the craft over to the party and expressed a lot of curiosity, which was not gratified, as the boys knocked the cases off the "pontoons" and then floated them. With the boards from the cases, a sort of platform was then constructed between the floating tanks and lashed to them with stout wire. The wonderment of the old waterman was in no wise decreased when he saw the boys then fall feverishly to work and load the dinghy, attached to the launch, with large stones. When they had her piled to the water line, they pulled out to where they had anchored the tanks with their bridge-like platform, and commenced to place the rocks on board till Frank estimated that there was as much weight reposing on the pontoons as they would be called upon to bear when the Golden Eagle was super-imposed on them.
As Frank had figured, the tanks were immersed for about a third of their depth under the weight, and when the burden of the boys and Bluewater Bill was added, they sank till about half their circumference was above and half below the water. The whole contrivance was then taken in tow of the Ocean Spray, in order to ascertain just how she would behave under the speed at which it was hoped the propellers of the Golden Eagle would drive her when the contrivance was affixed to her bed plates.
It was a perfect day, and as the boys emerged from the mouth of the inlet and the blue expanse of the Sound spread before them, they fairly shouted with delight at the sparkling water and invigorating air.
"How long are you going to stay out?" asked Bluewater Bill, as the Ocean Spray plunged bravely forward and the sharp-nosed pontoons, to the boys' delight, clove the water behind without making any noticeable resistance.
"The Golden Eagle will drive over any seaweed that ever floated on these," shouted Billy excitedly as he gazed back.
"How long are we going to stay out?" repeated Frank, in reply to Bluewater Bill's question. "Oh, not more than an hour or so, but it's such a glorious day I'd like to keep on going for a while."
"So would we," chorused the others.
"Wall," was the old-sailor's rejoinder, "I don't want to be a spoil-sport, boys, but do you see that haze yonder?"
Frank nodded.
Over on the Connecticut shore, which lay a low, blue line on the opposite horizon, a sort of haze, floating like a silken scarf, was indeed quite observable when attention was called to it.
"What is it?" asked Frank.
"It looks to me like fog," said Bluewater Bill, slowly, "but it may be nothing. Anyhow we've got time for a cruise afore it comes up, I reckon."
"Oh, lots of time," rejoined Frank confidently, as he gave the wheel a twist and sent the little Ocean Spray, a twenty-five foot craft, dancing clear into the sparkling seas that came tumbling along. As her sharp bow encountered them, the speedy little craft tossed the water in glittering cascades back over her foredeck. The pleasantly stinging spray blew in a moist cloud back in the young voyagers' faces.
"Say, Frank," exclaimed Billy, suddenly, "let me take a cruise on those pontoons, will you? I've read about rafts ever since I was knee-high to a bicycle pump, but I never rode on one."
"All right, Billy," laughed Frank, and after the queer craft astern had been drawn up by the tow-line the young reporter jumped aboard.
"Let out lots of rope," he cried, as the stone-laden contrivance bobbed about on the waves, "this is bully. A regular private yacht.
"Oh, a sailor's life is the life for me,Out on the ocean, out on the sea;Out with the whales, out with the shark,If a cat-fish mews does a dog-fish bark?"
The Ocean Spray once more forged ahead, and so absorbed were the boys in putting the little ship through her paces that not one of them noticed a curious change that was gradually taking place in the weather. The air had grown more chilly and an almost imperceptible film of mist was creeping over the sun-warmed waters. If Bluewater Bill had not dropped into the little cabin for a snooze he would have warned the boys of their peril, but, as it was, their first realization of the fact that the fog was upon them was their complete envelopment in a dense blanket of dripping mist.
If a curtain had rolled down all about them they could not have been more completely blotted out from their surroundings.
Everywhere the soft white mist baffled sight. From the stern of theOcean Spray it was impossible to make out the tiny vessel's bow.
The smothering blanket of pearly-gray vapor had enwrapped them so completely that in their first excitement they lost all sense of their bearings, and as they had no compass they were in a bad fix indeed.
Hastily Frank awoke Bluewater Bill.
The old sailor uttered a sharp exclamation as he emerged from the cubby hole in which he had been sleeping and gazed about him. The fog settled in glittering masses on his bushy eyebrows and whiskers, as he scanned the impenetrable mist in every direction.
"Whereabouts was you when the fog came up?" he asked suddenly.
"About in the middle of the Sound," announced Frank.
"Couldn't be in a worse place," commented Bill, "right in the track of the Fall River steamers and any other craft that happens to come up or down the Sound."
Even as he spoke there came the long melancholy boom of a steamer's whistle from somewhere in the obscurity.
Bill hastily searched the Ocean Spray's cabin.
"Well, we are in a fix, boys," was his comment as he concluded his examination of the lockers and cupboards.
The boys looked their questions.
"Ain't a fog-horn nor a bell aboard this craft," was Bill's alarming intelligence, "we may get run down any minute."
Again through the fog came the roar of the approaching steamer's whistle.
Ominous, full of sinister possibilities, the voice of the nearing peril roared through the fog.
Suddenly there was a shout from astern.
"Hey there, I don't want to squeal, but I'm getting nervous. Have you forgotten me or am I adrift?"
"Billy Barnes!" cried Frank, "I had clean forgotten about him. Come on, boys, lay a hand on the tow-rope and we'll get him aboard."
The engine of the Ocean Spray had been cut off by Bill, when he first discovered that the little craft was as helpless to aid herself as a drifting log in the dense smother. She now rode the swells silently and powerless.
In response to Billy's hail, the boys shouted back:
"All right, Billy, we'll have you aboard in a minute."
"Hurry up, it's awful lonesome out here," came back Billy's cheerful hail through the fog.
Frank and Harry laid on to the rope and started to haul the pontoons and their freight inboard, but even as their hands closed on the rope the booming roar of the menacing steamer's whistle permeated the fog once more.
It seemed as if this time it was directly over them.
"Start the engine," cried Harry, as the full sense of their peril was borne in on him.
The shriek of the large vessel's whistle was now sounding almost in their ear-drums. Frank expected every minute to see the obscurity pierced by a huge black prow.
But as this thought flashed across him there came a sudden diversion. The tow-rope they were hauling on suddenly was torn from their hands, almost dragging them overboard, and though they could hardly see it they could "feel" the presence of a huge vessel going past not twenty feet astern.
"Billy!" shouted Frank as the tow-rope was jerked from his grasp.
The only reply was a grinding, rasping crash as if some great object were brushing resistlessly past a smaller one, and then the whistle boomed out again.
This time, however, its sound came in diminishing form and as the Ocean Spray cruised round blindly in the fog, searching in vain for any trace of the raft, it grew fainter and fainter and finally died away into the distance.
Half an hour later a breeze sprang up, the fog lifted almost as suddenly as it had closed in and the Sound once more shone in the sparkling rays of the afternoon sun.
The boys uttered a shout as they perceived not a mile from them the raft bobbing about on the waves as buoyant as a cork. It had, then, evidently survived the collision, but in the same glance they saw that it had no occupant.
Billy Barnes had vanished.
They spent the rest of the day till sunset circling about in the vain hope of coming across some trace of the missing lad; but in vain.
If the sea had indeed, as the boys now feared with sinking hearts, swallowed their young companion, he could not have vanished more completely.
When Billy Barnes opened his eyes, he found himself lying in a white and gold stateroom that seemed luxurious enough in its furnishings to be the cabin on some millionaire's yacht. Where he was, he had not the slightest idea. All that he recollected of the events preceding his awakening was his shout to the boys to be taken aboard after the fog closed down. Then came the sudden appearance above his head of what seemed a mountainous black steamer bow, a terrific crash, that hurled him from the pontoon raft into the water, and then a frenzied grip for a trailing rope.
As he reflected on these events and wondered where on earth he could be, the door opened and a white-coated steward stepped in. He seemed surprised to see Billy's eyes opened.
"You came to pretty quick after your ducking," he remarked. "I'll go call the doctor."
In a few minutes he was back with a pleasant-faced, gray-whiskered man who informed Billy that the ship that had run him down was the Sound steamer, Princeton, bound from Boston for New York. The instant the lookout had reported an object dead ahead, ropes and life-buoys had been thrown overboard, one of which Billy had managed to grasp and hold on to till a sailor could be lowered and the half-drowned reporter dragged on board.
"You held so tight to the rope even after you became insensible," commented the physician, "that we had a hard time to break your grip. How did you come to be out on the Sound in such a fog?"
Billy hastily related to him the events that had led up to his presence on the raft, only omitting, of course, the object of the experiments. The doctor was very curious on this point, but his inquisitiveness was destined to go unsatisfied. Billy had no intention of betraying the boys' confidence in so important a matter as the proposed recovery of the golden galleon. The secret was theirs alone, he reflected. What was his amazement, then, about half an hour after the doctor had left him, with orders to sleep if he could, to hear in the next stateroom a voice, which he had no difficulty in recognizing as Luther Barr's, utter the following words:
"Then we start for the Sargasso Sea as soon as possible. You have done very well, Sanborn, and you, Malvoise. You need not be afraid I shall not reward you."
"Thank you," the listening boy heard Malvoise reply, in his smooth tones. "We have indeed done all that we could to hasten the scheme. It was lucky that we were able to purchase that dirigible of Constantio's at Boston, for if we had had to construct one of our own we should have been in a hard fix to beat the Boy Aviators in getting to the golden galleon. As it is we will be there first and when they arrive they will find an empty shell of a ship for their pains."
"Ha! ha! ha!" Billy heard old Luther Barr laugh in his thin piping tones, "it will be as good as a feast to see their faces when they find that we have forestalled them. What is the best part of it is that they will never guess who gave us the secret of the lost galleon's location."
"I look to you to make that information worth my while," put inSanborn's rasping tones.
"And I will," cried old Barr, clapping his withered hands together. "You shall be well rewarded, never fear. But now about your purchase in Boston—how much did she cost?"
"Twelve thousand dollars," was the cool reply of the speaker, whose voice Billy had recognized as being that of Malvoise.
"Twelve thousand dollars!" almost screamed old Luther Barr, "why you mean to ruin me."
"What, you grudge twelve thousand dollars when there are millions, perhaps, at stake?" demanded Malvoise's calm tones.
"No, no," old Barr corrected himself, "it's not that, but twelve thousand dollars is a lot of money. However, I'd gladly give twice that sum to get first to the lost galleon and her golden cargo."
"It's well worth it," commented Sanborn.
"Anyway, she is exactly the kind of air-ship we need for the recovery of the treasure," put in Malvoise. "Originally intended for Government use, she was turned back to her owner on account of a defect in the machinery which has since been rectified. She carries a fine cabin and a pilot house on her substructure, and is fitted up with sleeping quarters. Best of all, she is capable of lifting five tons beside her own weight. The hydrogen gas to inflate her with, we can carry down in tubes on your yacht and fill the bag when we get to the borders of the Sargasso, although Constantio, her inventor, who will go with us, has ideas of his own about hydrogen."
"But how are you to float her while we are rifling the galleon of her treasure?" demanded old Barr.
"Very simple," was the reply, "merely tether her to the galleon as you would a horse and when we are ready to load, haul her to a level with the deck and then with a full cargo of treasure—hurray for New York!"
"Splendid," cried old Barr, catching the enthusiasm of the other, "we will sail then, shortly?"
"As soon as everything is ready" was the reply of Malvoise, "we need one more man and I have advertised for him—now let us drink to the treasure of the Buena Ventura and may we soon have our hands in the sack."
There was a clinking of glasses as the toast was drunk, and then the trio conversed in lower tones. Billy had heard enough, however, to convince him that by some strange fate he had been rescued from death in the Sound to become the instrument of the discovery of a plot to beat the boys to the Sargasso and the treasure ship. Gritting his teeth he resolved to do all he could to frustrate the man who had tried to outwit the Boy Aviators in Africa and steal their hard-won ivory.
Two hours later, the Princeton docked at New York, and Billy hastened to despatch a telegram to Lone Cove, telling the others of his safety and that he had important news to communicate.
With what delight the chums received news of their comrade's safety may be imagined and they boarded the first available train to meet him at the Astor House in New York, where Billy had agreed to be at the appointed time.
As the young reporter hastened from the wharf, taking good care—as he thought—not to let old Barr and his two accomplices see him, he almost collided with a seafaring man who was hurrying down the wharf to board a Boston steamer that was about to pull out. The next instant his hand was caught in a mighty grasp that almost wrung it off.
"Wal, I'll be hornswoggled, Billy Barnes!" was the exclamation of the stranger.
"Ben Stubbs!" exclaimed the amazed Billy, almost knocked off his feet at the sudden encounter with the brave adventurer who had shared the boys' perils in Nicaragua, the Everglades and in Africa. "What are you doing here?"
"I might ax the same question of you," was the reply, "but one at a time as the feller said when they all wanted to shoot him at once for stealing a horse. I've got time and I can wait."
"You are the same old Ben, I see," laughed Billy; "but seriously, what are you doing here?"
"Why I was just on my way to Boston," was the rejoinder. "I seen this 'ad' in the paper where it said, 'Wanted, brave man, ex-sailor preferred, to assume dangerous mission—Big pay. Apply No. 46, Charlton Street, Boston.'" And Ben flourished a clipping.
"But, Ben," remonstrated Billy, "you have plenty of money from your share of the ivory. I thought you had invested it in a rubber plantation in Central America."
"That's right," said Ben, with a sorrowful air. "I invested it all right—sunk it, maybe would be a better word, fer when I gets down there to start in developing my plantation, I finds that you couldn't see my noble estate fer the water that happened to cover it."
"What!" exclaimed Billy, "you had been swindled?"
"Ay, ay, lad, that's about it. Some of these here land-sharks had trimmed me from top-gallant mast to bilge keel. They cleaned me out and left me high and dry. So when I see that 'ad' I says to myself, says, I, there's just the thing for me."
"Say, Ben," exclaimed Billy, suddenly, "Let me have a look at that 'ad' again, will you?"
"Sure," said the old adventurer, handing him the clipping from which he had taken the address, "here you are."
"Why!" exclaimed Billy suddenly, "L. B. are the initials of LutherBarr."
"What! that old cat-a-mount?" cried Ben, "is he still alive?"
"He certainty is and up to fresh mischief," was the rejoinder. "Of course there are lots of L. B.'s in Boston, but coupled with a conversation I overheard, it looks to me as if the man who inserted this 'ad' is Barr himself."
"What makes you think so, youngster?"
Billy launched into a narration of what he had overheard on the steamer after his rescue.
"Ph-e-e-w!" whistled Ben, as the young reporter concluded, "so the old varmint is up to his tricks again, is he? Well now, sonny, if this L. B. in the 'ad' should be the same as Luther Barr, it won't do no harm for me to be along with him. But first, I'll get my whiskers shaved off and that will make me look a heap different. Then I'll dress in a different rig and he won't know me any more than I'd know the old clipper North Star after they turned her into a coal barge."
"You really mean that, Ben?"
"Do I really mean it," echoed Ben, "well, watch me. Hullo!" he exclaimed suddenly, "there goes the last whistle. Well, good-by for the present and give me your address and I'll let you know as soon as I find out anything. Whoop-ee! it's good to see you lads again."
So saying, after a hearty clasp of the hand the former mariner ran up the wharf and was pulled aboard clinging to one end of the gang-plank like a fly.
As Billy started for the hotel to meet the others, he was musing deeply over what he had overheard. So engrossed was he in his thoughts, in fact that when a rather roughly-dressed man stepped in front of him and peered into his face once or twice, as if to make certain he was the lad he sought, Billy gave an involuntary start. He was walking beside the gloomy arches of Brooklyn Bridge, some of which are used for refrigerating plants and others to store all kinds of goods, from hides to tin articles. It is a little frequented part of town except by persons walking across town from East River steamers.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"Your name Barnes, young feller?" was the response.
"It is—what do you want?"
"Old man named Eben Joyce was just run over. They carried him into my house and he sent me to look for you."
"How did you come to recognize me in the street?" demanded Billy, feeling a strong distrust of the stranger, who had little rat-like eyes and a furtive manner.
"I was on my way ter yer noospaper office, guv'ner," rejoined the other, "but you see I had such a good description of yer handsome face that I couldn't miss but rec'ernize yer when I ran inter yer in the street."
Now if Billy had thought this explanation over he would have seen that it would not hold water for a minute, but he was excited by the events of the day and in no mood for reflection.
"Well," he demanded, "what does Mr. Joyce want?"
"I don't know, guv'ner. I didn't ask him that, you know. We always mind our own business, we folks on Vanderwater Street do. Come on, guv'ner, I'll take you there. It's only a few blocks. The old man does want to see you awful bad."
"As a matter of fact I had an important engagement," cried Billy, "but still if the poor old man is injured and wants me, I'll go with you."
"All right, guv'ner, I'll take yer there," promised his guide with a grin, "follow me and you can't go wrong. You've got a good heart, guv'ner."
So saying he dived into the shadow of one of the great arches andBilly the next instant followed him into the gloom.
Billy's guide conducted him under the bridge and along a gloomy-looking street of poor houses, huddled together like the cages of animals. The windows of many of them were broken and they were otherwise tumbledown, and the young reporter realized that he was in one of the most squalid parts of New York. He grew suspicious and was about to halt his guide and ask him some questions when the ill-favored conductor suddenly stopped in front of a particularly dark, gloomy-looking brick tenement, and beckoning to Billy, urged the lad to follow.
In spite of his misgivings, Billy entered the place and followed his guide up four flights of steep, unlighted stairs.
"Here is Mr. Joyce's room," he announced, flinging open a door. Billy stepped forward through the portal, and found himself in an apartment in which the paper was peeling off the wall from long neglect, and the light only streaked in through cracks in the closed shutters. Save for a rickety chair and a broken-down table, it was empty.
"Where is Mr. Joyce?" Billy was about to ask, when he felt himself seized from behind and a voice hissed in his ear:
"Well, Master Barnes, we've got you where we want you."
At the same instant a stout rope was drawn about him, pinioning his arms to his sides.
In his captor, as he stepped forward, Billy had no difficulty in recognizing Sanborn, the treacherous mechanic, and while he gazed in astonishment at the man there appeared from an inner room Luther Barr and Malvoise, the French aviator.
"You'd better let me go at once," cried Billy angrily. "What do you want with me?"
"Nothing very much," piped old Barr, "nothing very much, my dear lad. You are in a position to do us a great service, that is all, and I am sure, after your providential rescue from the waters of the Sound, you ought to be grateful enough to try to benefit your fellow man by imparting a little information. You see, we saw your rescue and had a messenger track you from the wharf and bring you here."
Billy was puzzled, but nevertheless somewhat relieved. He had thought at first that his capture was due to the fact that the boys' enemies knew that he had overheard their conversation in the stateroom of the Princeton, but it was now evident that they had some other motive in luring him to their obscure meeting place, and had no idea that he had played eavesdropper on their plan to forestall the boys in their treasure quest.
"Tell me first what it is you want to know," said he stoutly, "I cannot say whether I will tell you anything or not till I learn that."
"Well, we won't occupy much of your valuable time then," put in Malvoise; "what we want to know is this: "How soon are those young whelps, the Boy Aviators, going to start for the Sargasso Sea?"
"Suppose I won't tell you," retorted Billy, bravely sparring for time.
"Then we shall find a means to make you."
"Well, I will not tell you one single thing about our plans, and you might as well make up your minds to that right now."
"What, you won't?"
"No, I won't."
Malvoise crouched as if he was about to spring on the boy, but oldBarr interfered.
"No violence now, Malvoise," he croaked; "we can use other means. I really think we shall have to use another method to bring this young man to his senses. First of all, however, search him, he may have papers on him that concern our project."
But a search of Billy's clothes revealed no paper that threw any light on the Boy Aviators' plans, and the baffled plotters looked their rage.
"Lock him in the inner room," ordered old Barr, "it's a nice warm place for a young man to sit and meditate on his stubbornness, and perhaps to-morrow he will have come to his senses."
Without more ado Malvoise and Sanborn picked Billy up in their arms and carried him through the door from which Barr and the Frenchman had emerged and thrust him forward into a small room without windows. It was really more like a large cupboard than a room, and most probably at one time or another had been used as a clothes closet in the days when the old house was a mansion and stood in a fashionable part of the town.
Billy heard the key click in the lock and found himself in total darkness. From outside came to him the mocking voice of old Barr.
"We shall be back at the same time to-morrow, Master Barnes; please be ready to tell us what we want to know at that time."
The others laughed; but Billy, angry and somewhat scared as he was, made no reply. Then he heard their footsteps die away and he was alone in the darkness in the deserted tenement.
He threw himself against the door with all his force several times, till his body was bruised and sore in fact, but it was of stout wood and yielded no more than if it had been the portal of a steel vault.
Seeing the futility of hoping to escape that way, Billy fell to trying to work himself out of his rope bonds. To his great joy after several minutes of wriggling he succeeded in loosening the not very securely tied knot and was soon free; so far as the rope was concerned. This accomplished he felt far more cheerful and set about trying some means of opening the door of his prison.
But without tools this was difficult—in fact, an impossible feat—as Billy, after a long period of wasted effort, found out. If only he had some kind of tool, however, he might be able to make some impression on the lock, he thought.
It was quite by accident that he encountered what he wanted. He was leaning back against the wall, after a long period of vain effort on the door, when his hand encountered what his sense of touch told him was a clothes hook, formed of bent wire—a relic of the days when Billy's dungeon was used as a cupboard evidently. With eager fingers the young reporter unscrewed the hook from the wall and then went to work to straighten it out till he should have a serviceable bit of wire with which to pick the lock. In his capacity as a reporter, Billy had some knowledge of the methods used by burglars; but he never thought, at the time the subject had interested him, that he would ever have occasion to put his knowledge to practical use.
Now, however, with his clumsy skeleton key he set to work poking about in the lock as eagerly as any marauder trying to effect an illicit entrance to a rich trove.
Just as it seemed that he would have to give up in despair, the lad's wire encountered a "tumbler" of the lock that yielded to its pressure.
Billy with a beating heart pressed and the lock, which in spite of its age seemed to have been recently oiled, probably by Barr, responded. The next instant with a click, the lock slid open and Billy walked out of the stifling air of the coop—free.
It was the work of only a few minutes for him to reach the street, as Barr and his accomplices had not taken the precaution to lock the outer door in their hurry. Probably they didn't think it necessary, anyhow, as it could never have occurred to them that Billy would be able to effect an escape from the locked closet, except by working a miracle.
Swiftly the boy threaded his way through the streets and finally reached the Astor House. He found that the boys had preceded him there and had gone away, after leaving a message with the clerk for Billy to call up the Chesters' Madison Avenue home in case he should happen to arrive after they had left.
Billy at once made his way to the 'phone booths and was soon in communication with Frank at the other end of the wire.
"This is the second time to-day you've worried the life out of us," exclaimed Frank, much relieved as he heard Billy's voice. "When you didn't appear at the Astor we were badly puzzled, I can tell you. We thought something had happened to you."
"And it nearly did," retorted Billy indignantly, "I've got a long story to tell you, Frank."
"Get right on a car and come up," was the rejoinder.
Billy was soon speeding uptown to the Chester boys' home. He found all the adventurers there in the room over the garage which had been given up to the lads as a workshop and experimental laboratory. With what wonderment the boys listened to Billy's tale may be imagined.
"I'd like to see the rascals' faces when they open that closet to-morrow morning," cried Lathrop Beasley, who had joined the boys' party at Frank's urgent invitation.
"It will be a case of 'gone, but not forgotten,'" grinned Billy. "But seriously, fellows, this shows the necessity of starting as soon as possible. It means a race between us and old Luther Barr."
"And we mean to win it," put in Frank in a determined voice. "It will not take long to adjust the pontoons to the Golden Eagle's frames, and that done we are practically ready."
"Where do you intend to start from?" asked Billy.
"We were talking that over on our way up to the city," was Frank's reply. "My plan was to charter a large cabin motor-boat at some point on the Gulf coast—say Galveston—and then round the point of Florida and keep on east across the Caribbean. Once we have arrived on the outskirts of the Sargasso we can erect the Golden Eagle on her pontoons and make a flight for the galleon."
"A good idea," cried Billy, eagerly, "we ought to have no difficulty in getting a good boat at Galveston."
"I have one already," was Frank's astonishing reply. Frank loved to spring surprises.
"What?" shouted the amazed young reporter.
Frank drew out a telegram.
"I got this to-night in response to a wire I sent a yacht broker there some days ago," he said.
"Read it out, Frank," urged Billy.
"Have what you want in gasolene yacht, Bolo. Fifty feet over all, twenty-five horsepower engine, auxiliary sails and fine cabin. Will charter reasonably. Wire at once if you want her."
"Sounds good," commented Harry.
"So I thought," said Frank, "and as we've no time to lose, it would be a good idea to telegraph them to get her ready for sea at once. I will also instruct the agent to get a ship chandler to stock her with provisions for a cruise of two months."
Billy threw his hat in the air.
"Hurray for the BOY AVIATORS afloat!" he shouted.
MR. "L. B.'s" DIRIGIBLE
The next morning Ben Stubbs arrived in Boston, and waiting till evening made his way to No. 46 Charlton Street. During the day he had had his whiskers shaved off which entirely altered his appearance.
The house bearing the number he sought was a five-story structure of gray stone, and had evidently once been a home of wealth; but the manufacturing district had long since encroached on the region and it now was the only residence remaining in the midst of monotonous blocks of houses of industry. In fact, at dusk—the time at which Ben Stubbs paid his first visit to it—the neighborhood was practically deserted, as the factory hands who worked there during the day had all gone home and they lived in another part of the city.
Ben "took his bearings," as he would have termed it, before he mounted the flight of steps leading to the front door of the house. He noticed that the windows were all shuttered, and to the casual observer it would have seemed that the house was unoccupied. The sailor's sharp eye, however, noticed that a cloud of smoke was proceeding from a chimney and that numerous electric wires were strung from the street poles into the house.
As he stood there gazing at it an old watchman, who had been sitting in a shanty in front of one of the factories, approached him.
"A gloomy-looking place that, eh?" said the garrulous old man, addressing Ben.
"Ay, ay, shipmate, you may well say that," was the reply, "a melancholer looking craft I never see. Do you know anything about the folks as lives there?"
"Very little," replied the old man in his quavering tones, "but that little I don't like. I've seen wagons drive up there with big carboys of acid on 'em, and sometimes in the night, when it's all still, I hear a great noise of hammering and strange lights gleam through the chinks of the shutters—ah, there's something queer about it I can tell you. All's not right in that house."
"Hum," said Ben, for lack of anything better to say.
"And for the last week," went on the old man, "things has been queerer than ever. I don't like it, I tell you, when at midnight you see a great dark thing come flying off the roof with a gleaming eye on it and a buzzing voice like a big fly. I leave it to you if that ain't enough to scare any Christian, let alone an old man watching a factory in this lonesome part of town."
Ben agreed; but to tell the truth, his attention had been distracted by the old man's description of the night-terror he had seen. In the old sailor's mind there was little doubt that the object that had so scared the old watchman was the dirigible that Luther Barr had purchased and which the crafty old millionaire was trying out by night so as to avoid attracting any attention.
"Well," said Ben lightly, "I've got a little business in that there house, shipmate, and if so be as I finds out anything about what kind of folks they are, I'll let you know."
"Thank you," rejoined the old watchman earnestly, "I'm getting an old man to have such scares thrown into me—it's really too bad."
Ben lightly ran up the steps, having nodded farewell to the old watchman, and the next minute pressed the electric bell. Somewhere in the far interior of the gloomy mansion he could hear the tinkle of the answering summons. The sailor, as he waited for the door to open on he knew not what, reached back with his weather-beaten hand to his hip pocket. He nodded with satisfaction as his fingers encountered the butt of a revolver of heavy caliber.
"All right, old bark-and-bite," muttered Ben to himself, "I feel better now we've shaken hands."
At that moment there came a great clanking from inside the door, as if heavy bolts and chains were being removed, and the next instant the portal swung open and Ben found himself face to face with a thickset man, who seemed, by his complexion and general appearance, to be of Spanish origin. His heavy eyebrows and thin, cruel lips gave him a singularly sinister appearance.
"What do you wish?" he demanded of Ben, with a foreign accent that agreed with his general makeup.
"Is Mr. L. B. at home?" inquired Ben, "'cos if he is, I want to see him particular. You see, I'm in need of a job and—"
"Oh" said the other, with what seemed to be relief in his tones, "you come in answer to the advertisement. Come in. I am glad you have called. We were sadly in need of a hand, and you seem stout and strong enough for any work we may call on you to do."
"That's as it may be," cautiously replied Ben. "I ain't delicate exactly, but I'd like to know just what my dooties are to be, afore I signs on for this cruise."
By this time the man with the heavy eyebrows had ushered Ben into a parlor furnished with what had once been great splendor; but now the hangings were faded, the furniture warped and aged and over all hung a musty aroma as if the place had been closed for ages.
"Sit down," ordered Ben's guide, "now then, first, where do you come from?"
"Right here in Boston," rejoined Ben, "that is, when I'm at home; but Hank Hardtack don't get a shore cruise very often. I follow the sea, guv'ner, from year's end to year's end mostly; but tiring of the foc'sle I thought I'd like a land job for a spell, and seeing your 'ad' in a New York paper, I happened to get a hold of, I made bold to call."
"What did you say your name was?" inquired the other.
"Hardtack—Mr. Hank Hardtack, sometimes called 'Skilly,'" said the unblushing Ben. "I'm a homely craft, but seaworthy, guv'ner."
"So I see," said the other, with a slight smile. "Well, Mr. Luther Barr, who is L. B., is not at home now. In fact, he is in New York; but I venture to say that you will suit him down to the ground."
Ben could scarcely suppress a grin of delight at the mention of old Barr's name. He was then on the right track. How lucky that the crafty old wolf was in New York, he thought.
"As for your duties," went on the other, "they will be novel to you. I do not suppose you are at all acquainted with air-craft?"
Ben shook his head, inwardly thinking, "If you knew what I know, my hearty."
"Well, this job is to help run a dirigible balloon," went on the other. "We advertised for a sailor so that we would be sure of getting a man who would not lose his head at a height and who would be an all round handy man. We have an engineer and a pilot and Mr. Barnes and myself at present complete the crew. If you will follow me I will show you the vessel."
Hardly able to conceal his satisfaction, Ben, with all the indifference he could assume, replied that he would be very glad to see the air-ship, and followed his guide to the roof of the house. The factories about them were mostly two- and three-story structures, so that the roof of the deserted mansion formed a fine workshop for those who did not want their movements spied upon or overlooked.
Housed under a protecting shed of canvas, stretched in a wooden framework, was a large dirigible balloon, its partially filled bag of yellow silk wrinkled and lopsided under its network of stout cord. Suspended below the bag was a framework, in the center of which was built a pilot house with a short "deckhouse," so to speak, extended astern of it. A runway extended fore and aft on the platform and was railed, clearly indicating its purpose as a sort of promenade deck, or perhaps a navigating bridge.
Ben's guide beckoned to the amazed adventurer to follow, and led the way through a small door, kept closed with a powerful spring, into what seemed to be the engine-room of the craft.
"A hundred horsepower here," said the black-browed man, touching the glittering cylinder tops of the gasolene engine. "The tanks are carried below and have a large capacity. We have a cruising radius of more than fifteen hundred miles on one filling."
Ben nodded and his guide, after indicating the various gauges, height and speed indicators and other instruments in the engine-room, led the way through another spring-closed door into a comfortably fitted up main cabin. Touching a switch he flooded the cabin with a soft light that glowed from a ground glass shade affixed to the engine-room bulkhead. The place was decorated in white and gold, and divans, covered with crimson velvet cushions, extended along each side of the chamber. In the center was a swinging table, and above it, in neat racks, were numerous charts and mathematical instruments, each in its own place. Six large portholes, three on a side, admitted daylight when the ship was out of the shed, and there was a window of plate glass in the floor, through which occupants of the cabin could gaze down to the landscape below if so inclined. Small staterooms opened off it.
The next part of the ship to be visited was the pilot-house, which was reached by a short flight of steps from the main cabin. In this part of Luther Barr's dirigible were placed the steering wheel, engine controls and wind and weather gauges. Large portholes, that could be opened if required, gave a view out on every side, and through two affixed at the rear of the pilot-house, which was raised about three feet above the cabin roof, it was possible to command a view of the stern of the ship. From the pilot-house, doors opened on to the navigating deck. Ben's attention was caught by an object shrouded in heavy tarpaulin on the deck immediately forward of the pilot-house.
"A rapid-firing gun," explained his guide, "you see we are going on a cruise that may be dangerous and so we are going armed. In the cabin, beneath the divans, are lockers in which ammunition and rifles are kept."
"Well, shipmate, I don't want to go on no cruise that threatens danger," cried Ben, hoping in this way to elicit something as to the nature of Barr's plans, but he was unsuccessful. The other merely shrugged his shoulders and replied:
"I did not say there WAS danger. There is none in fact—to us that is, but—"
He paused and checked himself as if he realized he was saying too much, nor could Ben elicit anything more from him.
"Well, you've got a good-looking ship here," was Ben's next remark, "but are you sure she can fly?"
"Fly!" indignantly cried the other, "like a seagull, man. We have tested her several nights from this roof. She is as safe as a street car. This wonderful craft, senor, is my invention—mine, the child of the brain of Alfredo Constantio."
He struck an attitude.
"Well, Mr. Constantio, you're all right," replied Ben," and now if you'll excuse me I'll just go round to my sumptuous apartments and get my ditty bag."
"Very well, I will come with you," rejoined Constantio, "you see, you have seen the secrets of the ship now, and I don't want you out of my sight till we are ready to sail on our venture."
This was an unexpected complication.
Ben had figured on getting out of the house on the excuse of packing his things and then taking a train to New York and apprising his young friends of his discoveries. Senor Constantio, it seemed, was too crafty for this, however.
"Well," thought Ben, "there is no help for it. I shall have to trust to luck to give him the slip I suppose."
Thus hoping the old sailor sallied forth with the redoubtable Don Constantio, who, for his part, was very garrulous and confided to Ben that he had sold his invention to Luther Barr for a big price, because the old millionaire needed a good dirigible in a hurry.
"But," he went on, "while I have a great ship, my main secret is in the gas. I have discovered a powder which can be easily carried and which when mixed with the proper ingredients forms the pure hydrogen gas. I make it in cylinders that will withstand a pressure of two thousand pounds. Hydrogen cylinders weigh, it is true, three hundred pounds each, they are of such enormous thickness, and are made of special steel—like a gun, but, Senor Hardtack, my powder occupies so little space that I can carry enough for several inflations in receptacles which combined do not weigh more than one hundred and fifty pounds."
Talking thus the black-browed inventor walked beside Ben, occasionally asking:
"How much further, Senor Hardtack, to your lodgings?"
"Not much further now," Ben always replied, wondering when an opportunity would present itself to escape. Suddenly one came.
As they turned a corner a small boy with a bundle of papers almost ran into them, and thrusting his papers up almost in Senor Constantio's face, shouted:
"Wuxtry, wuxtry!" with deafening lung power.
All at once he darted off, and at the same moment the inventor cried:
"My watch! he has taken my watch! While he thrust his papers in my face he stole my watch!"
Shouting "Stop thief" at the top of his voice he raced off in the direction the newsboy had run, and Ben lost no time in taking to his heels in the opposite direction.
After doubling round several corners and then doubling on his own trail round another block he felt reasonably secure he had given the inventor the slip and, hailing a cab, was driven to the station. He was fortunate in securing a train to New York without having to wait more than five minutes, and late that night the Chester boys and the others of their party were in full possession of the details of the air-ship in which Luther Barr meant to overreach them if it lay within his power.
The knowledge that Luther Barr's air-ship was so nearly ready to start on the expedition which Sanborn's treachery had suggested to the old millionaire, acted as a spur to the boys in making their final arrangements. By starting from Galveston itself they saved the necessity of laying in a large stock of supplies in New York, so that when two days later "good-byes" having been said and last parental warnings issued—their only equipment beside their personal belongings were the boxes containing the sections of the Golden Eagle and the pontoons. The coverings had not been removed from the aeroplane's surfaces, but they had been packed, covered as they were. There was a reason for this, as lacing on the coverings at sea, even with the additional stability the boys hoped to secure by the use of the pontoons, would have been a tedious or even perhaps an impossible task. The wings, therefore, which joined at the center of the aeroplane, above the chassis, were packed in four sections measuring twenty-eight feet each. These sections Frank planned to carry in the cabin of the Bolo where they would be out of harm's way.
Five days later the adventurers reached the flat, uninteresting city of Galveston and lost no time in making immediate preparations for a start. Frank found that the agent had followed his instructions to the letter, and the galley shelves of the Bolo were filled with small articles to be used in cooking, and that flour bins, sugar and other receptacles had been well stocked. Besides all this there was a plentiful supply of such staples as beans, onions, potatoes, bacon, coffee, tea and a big stock of canned meats and vegetables. Their weapons were the boys' own armory, and Harry put in the best part of a day constructing neat racks in the cabin, which, when the various rifles and shotguns were hung in place, gave the little chamber a very businesslike appearance. The cabin was twenty-nine feet long, and the wings of the Golden Eagle were therefore a snug fit when suspended on slings from the cabin roof. The aeroplane engine was also placed in the cabin. The framework and other less perishable parts of the Golden Eagle, as well as the pontoons, were placed outside on the cabin roof, securely lashed down and covered with waterproof tarpaulin.
In the space under the cabin floor was stored an extra heavy anchor for use in emergency, in addition to the two fifty-pound mud-hooks the Bolo regularly carried. The boys noted with satisfaction that the booms on which the Bolo spread her auxiliary sails were lengthy affairs and would readily lend themselves to use as derricks when the time came to hoist the various parts on the Golden Eagle overboard into the floating erection base. The Bolo also carried a twelve-foot, high-sided dory, almost as seaworthy, despite her diminutive size, as the larger vessel. Under the cockpit seats were reserve tanks for gasolene and water, and beneath the cabin floor and in the bow were additional receptacles for fuel. Besides this supply the boys laid in a stock of five-gallon cans of gasolene, which were distributed wherever they would fit in on the little craft; some even being lashed on deck alongside the cabin.
The transportation of so much inflammable matter naturally called for the greatest caution, and, much to the disappointment of Ben Stubbs, who had insisted on joining the expedition, and Bluewater Bill, Frank absolutely forbade smoking aboard the craft. Nor was anybody allowed to carry matches. The only lucifers aboard were locked in the galley under Frank's sole charge. However, they all agreed that no precautions could be too stringent on a craft so laden with inflammables and explosives as was the Bolo.
The night before they were to sail, the boys slept on board. The Bolo's cabin was equipped with folding Pullman berths and also with transoms. Each berth held two, and the transoms accommodated the same number, so that eight could sleep comfortably aboard the little craft. Early the next morning, while the appetizing aroma of coffee and frizzling bacon filled the cabin from Ben's galley, a youthful news peddler wandered on to the dock and took up his place with other curious persons; for the equipping of the Bolo had made quite a stir among the water-front loungers of Galveston. The lad insisted on throwing a paper on board for "good luck," he said. Frank, who was out in the cockpit at the time re-stowing some cases of gasolene, threw the boy a coin and thought no more of the paper till, as they were discussing Ben's breakfast, he idly glanced over its front page.
"Mysterious Air-ship," was the heading that instantly caught his eye and caused him to set down his cup of coffee untasted. Reading the article he found even more matter to hold his attention. The item was dated Miami, Fla., and read as follows:
"Much curiosity has been excited here by the sudden appearance of a tent housing a huge air-ship. The aerial camp is located at a point several miles south of town. The tent is guarded by men armed with shotguns and no one is allowed to approach anywhere near it. The air-ship, however, has been seen at night taking flights seaward. So far, no explanation of the object of the air-ship's presence here has been vouchsafed by those interested in it. They are all strangers here and will not impart any information."
A few paragraphs further down another Miami despatch caught the eye. It was to the effect that "the Brigand, the yacht of Luther Barr, the New York and Newport millionaire, arrived here yesterday and anchored off shore. Mr. Barr is not a guest of any of our hotels, but is making his home aboard his palatial craft."
"Well, here's some news as is news," laughed Frank, handing the paper to the others. "It just goes to show that we are not any too previous in making a start. Now, if everybody's finished breakfast, I propose that we send our good-bye letters ashore and cast off for the Sargasso."
"The sooner the better," cried Harry, diving into his locker for a letter he had written the night before. The others also had their correspondence ready, so no time was lost in entrusting the mail to the same gamin who had thrown the paper on board and making final preparations for the start.
With the exception of the loafers on the wharf there was no one to look on, as the Bolo, with the Stars and Stripes bravely flying from her staff astern and the Golden Eagle's pennant attached to her bow, chugged out of the harbor and into the open Gulf.
"Off at last!" shouted Billy Barnes, from his seat on the top of the piled up cabin roof, as the shores of Galveston rapidly receded and finally became a mere blot. "If we don't have some dandy adventures before we get back call me a doodle bug."
All that day and the next the Bolo forged steadily onward over the purple waters of the Gulf. The boys set regular watches and things moved aboard the little craft man-of-war fashion from the start. Every night at sundown "colors" were made, that is, the flags were hauled down and the sunset gun fired with the tiny saluting cannon the little craft boasted. Then the red and green side-lights and the white bow-light were set in position. After supper in the cockpit under the awning—for it was far too warm to eat in the cabin—there would be songs and stories by Ben Stubbs and Bluewater Bill, who had been appointed navigating officer and first mate respectively, of the good ship Bolo.
On the morning of the second day out the boys were treated to a rare sea spectacle. There was a fair seaway, and the Bolo was plunging along through it as if she enjoyed it as much as the boys, when a cry from Billy, who had the lookout, aroused them all.
"Sail ho!—or rather, steamer ho!" hailed the amateur A. B.
"Where away?" thundered Bluewater Bill, who had the wheel, in true nautical style.
Billy was up a stump. What to reply he had no idea.
"It's off our bow," he hailed back; "but I don't know if you call it port or starboard."
Steadying himself by one of the foremast stays, Ben Stubbs sprang on to the cabin roof.
"Steamer on the port bow," he hailed, "looks like a Mallory liner."
And a Mallory liner it was.
As the boys drew nearer they gazed entranced at the fine spectacle the huge black hull made as she rushed through the rolling Gulf waters, her bow piling up a huge creamy wave as she cut her way. Her passengers lined her rail and waved madly at the tiny Bolo, rolling and plunging about in the waves that did not even rock the big liner. The boys for their part waved with all their might and Billy blew a blast on the foghorn.
"Aft there—aft and dip your colors!" shouted Bluewater Bill.
Ben Stubbs scrambled to the stern and dipped the flag again and again as the big black craft rushed on, without, however, noticing the courtesy of the small boat. As she sped by the boys spied her name, Brazos, in big gilt letters on her stern.
"I wish we could go as fast as that," remarked Billy, as the big steamer rapidly dwindled and finally passed out of sight, leaving only a black pall of smoke to show that she had passed.
"We are doing well enough," remarked Bluewater Bill, gazing back at the Bolo's wake.
"What are we making, do you judge?" asked Frank.
"Ten knots easily," replied the sailor, squinting at the white line of foam astern.
"Pretty good for this little craft," remarked Ben Stubbs, "though you can't always judge by the wake. I remember when I was on the old Dolphin brigantine in the China Sea. One morning we all of a sudden noticed a most termendous wake ahind us. It was running like a mill-race. I peeked over the side and it was fair whooping along.
"Why, we must be going twenty miles an hour," says the skipper; "queer we can't feel any motion."
"Well, boys, to make a long story short, we was that way for three days and never moved a foot. You see, it was one of them queer currents, and the pace it streaked by made it look as though we was going ahead when, shiver my top-gallants, if we wasn't standing still, the wind being just strong enough to keep us going forward at the same pace the current drew us back—what do you think of that?"
The boys didn't know what to think, and said so, but Bluewater Bill winked at them with a portentous eye and merely said:
"That reminds me, shipmate, of what happened when I was aboard the Flying Scud off Madagascar. If so be you don't mind, I'll spin you the yarn.
"One night it comes on to blow most tremenjous, and by morning we finds we was in one of them circular storms. Wall, mates, the wind blew all around us, but we didn't move at all. At eight bells the pig-pen fetched loose and them porkers got caught in the wind and whisked off the deck by the hurricane. As I've said, it was a circular storm and them poor porkers jest kep a goin' roun' and roun' and roun' the ship all that day. It was night afore the wind died down, and then, by a freak, it reversed and blew 'em all back again; but they was so dizzy that for a week they ran round the deck in circles and when we wanted pork it was no trick at all to catch a hog. All you had to do was to find out how he was revolving and then get in his way,—what do you think of that?"
"That you are exaggerating, William," said Ben, in a tone of reproof.
"Wall, if wind and tide can hold a ship still; wind alone can give a bunch of hogs a merry-go-round, can't it?" rejoined Bill.
"It can, but it don't," was Ben's reply.
"Ah, but you never sailed off the coast of Madagascar, did yer?" demanded Bill.
"No, I can't say as I ever did," replied Ben.
"Wall, then," triumphantly cried Bill, "you don't know what a pesky wind that Madagascar one is."
How long this argument, which the boys listened to with some amusement, might have gone on is hard to say, probably all night, if Ben had not suddenly cut it short by springing to his feet with an exclamation:
"Come on, shipmates!" he exclaimed, "stop gamming and get a move on and snug down this yer awning if you don't want to lose it. Billy, you open the self-baling scuppers in the cockpit, my lad, and Lathrop and Harry, you get out forward and double lash all that top hamper."
"Why, Ben, what's the matter?" asked Frank, "the sea is just as smooth as it has been all day and the sun is shining."
"Well, it won't be in a half an hour," replied the old salt, pointing southward. "See that cloud?"
He indicated a tiny purplish bit of vapor floating against the distant blue like an argosy. "There's wind in that cloud or my name's not Ben Stubbs," he concluded.
Bluewater Bill nodded his assent.
"Mor'n a capful, too," he said grimly.
Even as the two old salts exchanged glances the cloud seemed to grow, as if by magic, and by the time the awning was snugged home and lashed and everything had been hauled taut in preparation for the blow, the whole heavens were overcast with a sullen gray veil, and the sea began to rise with a low moaning sound that presaged what Ben Stubbs termed "a bad blow."