CHAPTER XIII.
FRANK TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE.
FRANK TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE.
FRANK TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE.
So utterly unexpected was the mysterious sound that even the steady-nerved Frank lost his wits for a moment and theGolden Eaglegave a dangerous swoop downward as he pulled the wrong plane-control in his agitation. In a second, however, he had righted his error and she soared on again on a level keel doing better than thirty miles an hour under the steady driving of her powerful engine.
Driving an aeroplane at night is a strange sensation. Neither of the boys was new to it entirely, having made night flights up the Hudson from New York to Poughkeepsie when they were experimenting with their ship and wished to keep its performances secret as far as possible.
It is a very different thing, however, to driving along the air above lit-up towns and a boat-thronged river to be soaring through the blackness above a dense tropical forest whose only inhabitants are wild beasts andvenomous snakes and, more dangerous than either, tribes of wandering Indians who would be likely to show small mercy to the young aviators if they fell into their hands. Both boys were filled with a sense of isolation and loneliness as theGolden Eaglebore them through the dark silence toward the distant camp-fires. Moreover both were thinking of the moment of parting that was to come when they had arrived near enough to the camp for Frank to put his bold plan into execution. Both the young aviators realized that a more dangerous undertaking could not well be imagined but it was not at the danger they flinched but the idea that this might be the last voyage they would ever make together.
The fires grew brighter and brighter as theGolden Eaglerushing through the upper air at express speed drew nearer to them. Frank called Harry to the wheel and busied himself with the rope-ladder. It was about thirty feet in length and formed of the best manila hemp rope with tough lignum vitae rounds. The tops of the ladder were roughened so as to afford a better hand and foot grip.
Frank’s first step in making his preparations was to hook the two leather loops at one end of the ladder securely into two hooks screwed into the edge of the trap-door in the floor of the pilot-house for the purpose. He then folded it so that the second he was ready to descend he could throw it out and it would fall in a straight line without snarling. He then opened the trap and, lying flat on his stomach carefully scanned through the night-glasses the character of the country over which they were racing along. Before he did this he gave a sharp order to Harry.
“Put out the light.”
There was a snap of the switch and theGolden Eagle’sbright eye grew black.
“Slow down the engine! Muffle her way down!” was the next command, “we don’t want to have to open her up, with the consequent noise, till we have to.”
As Harry obeyed, the sharp rattle of the exhaust, which had made the whole craft quiver under the strain of the hard-driven engine stopped and became a gentle purr hardly audible.
“That’s better,” commented Frank.
“How does she head for the fires now?” was his next question.
“South-by-a-quarter east,” replied Harry, switching on the binnacle light for a second and squinting at the compass.
“Bear up two points to the east,” ordered Captain Frank.
Harry obeyed and theGolden Eagleslid away from her straight course for the lights,—leaving them off on her starboard side.
“Just circle round a few times,” commanded Frank as they grew nearer and nearer, “the moon ought to be up shortly and then we can get some light on the subject.”
“It will make us a target for them if they see us,” he went on, “but that can’t be helped. We must trust to luck and their bad aim.”
As Frank had prophesied the moon shoved the edge of her rim above the low hills that surrounded the encampment a short time later. From his lookout place on the floor of the car Frank could see far below him the silvery radiance that flooded the tree-tops getting stronger and stronger. It showed him too, to his great delight, that there was a big space of ground, covered with what seemed to be short scrub, near to the camp, but separated from it by a dense grove of trees.It looked as if it would be feasible to swoop down to the earth at this spot close enough for the daring boy to drop to the ground from the end of the swinging rope ladder.
“Raise her a hundred feet or so,” said Frank, as soon as he had completed his survey. “Steer her right over the camp,” he ordered a second later.
“What?” demanded Harry; not sure that he had heard aright.
“Steer her over the camp,” repeated Frank, “It’s taking a long chance,—but I’ve got to know the lay of the ground.”
If Frank ordered a thing done Harry was accustomed to obey him without a word; so he put theGolden Eagleabout and pulling the raising plane levers shot the craft up, till Frank cried.
“She’ll do at that.”
As theGolden Eagleswept high in the air over the sleeping camp Frank noticed with exultation by the flag seen in the light of the bivouac fires it was indeed Zelaya’s camp. He also observed that they kept a very poor watch. Several men, evidently supposed to be doing sentry duty were asleep round the blaze of oneof the outer fires, and only in front of a small tent detached from a group of several that Frank assumed to be those of the officers, was there a guard patrolling. This fellow walked up and down unceasingly with his rifle over his shoulder and from time to time pulled open the tent-flap and peered in.
“He’s guarding a prisoner,” thought Frank, noticing these actions, and, he added to himself, “if the prisoner isn’t Billy I shall be much surprised.”
His survey of the camp completed, Frank had a pretty good mental photograph of it fixed in his mind. The next step in the rescue of Billy Barnes was to be the most dangerous; except the actual dash for freedom.
“Now keep cool Harry,” wound up Frank, after the boys had selected the spot on which theGolden Eaglewas to be brought near enough to the ground in a low curve for Frank to swing himself off onto terra-firma.
“All right Frank,” replied the boy, as he manipulated the needful levers for the downward swoop. He did not trust himself to say more. The next minute he felt Frank’s firm grip on his shoulder.
“Don’t take your hand off the wheel,” remonstrated Frank, as Harry prepared to grip his brother’s hand in farewell. “Good-bye old fellow and good luck to us all three.”
A few seconds sufficed to throw down the ladder and Frank slid down it to its lowest rung with the agility of a cat. He hung there on the plunging contrivance while theGolden Eagleswept downward like a pouncing hawk. Suddenly there was a jerk and Frank felt the end of the ladder hit the ground. TheGolden Eagle’simpetus had almost ceased at this lowest point of her swoop and Frank, as he let go with a whispered prayer, could feel the vibration, even where he hung as Harry, opened the engine up for the ascent,—without which theGolden Eaglewould have been dashed to pieces.
Frank landed in a pile of low bushes which broke his fall and saved him from possible serious injury. Harry in performing the ticklish evolution had been unable to check the speed of the air-craft sufficiently to avoid giving Frank a severe tumble when he dropped off, as Frank learned later theGolden Eaglehad, in fact, very nearly refused to answer her helm.
As soon as he collected his senses Frank ducked down behind the clump into which he had fallen and lay very still. He wanted to ascertain if the solitarysentry had noticed anything unusual. Apparently he had not, for the relieved boy could catch the sound of his regular footfalls as he paced to and fro in front of the tent in which, Frank was pretty certain, Billy lay a prisoner.
Reassured, Frank crept cautiously through the brush up to the edge of the grove of trees already mentioned as separating the camp from the bit of open ground on which he had landed. The solitary tent stood on the opposite edge of this clump and Frank’s plan was to creep up near to it under cover of the dark shadow cast by the grove, before he made his presence known to the occupant.
He threw a glance up from time to time as he made his way carefully over the ground. Far above him theGolden Eaglewas soaring, and Frank knew that the boy at her helm was at that moment wondering with all his might how their daring adventure was to turn out. Frank noted with satisfaction that theGolden Eaglewas not nearly as conspicuous as he had imagined she would have been. In fact if he hadn’t known that she was up there, he concluded that he would have had to search the sky for some time before he made her out.
It took him what seemed to be an interminable length of time to reach the edge of the clump of trees and wriggle his way up to the back of the tent, but at last he accomplished it, and lay behind the rear flap of the shelter with nothing to shield him from the eye of the sentry but a patch of deep shadow cast by the trees behind him.
Slowly Frank extended an arm and cautiously raised the edge of the flap. He was running a terrible risk he knew. It was, after all, pure assumption on his part that Billy was in there at all. It might as well be Rogero’s tent. This thought made Frank pause for a minute but he determined to go ahead as he had planned. If the worst came to the worst he had his pistol and he could make a dash for the open and trust to Harry’s being able to pick him up before they were riddled with bullets by the machine guns that he could see packed in another part of the camp.
With fast beating heart he waited till the solitary sentry had reached the farthest point of his patrol. Then he raised the flap a few inches and whispered:
“Billy, are you there? It’s me—Frank.”
The answer that came back almost made him forget the terrible risk he ran and cry out aloud with joy.
“What’s left of me;” came back a whispered rejoinder in Billy’s well-known tones, “I’d got a hunch you’d come.”