CHAPTER XXIII.

SAVED BY WIRELESS.

Frank was right. To keep on was all they could do. Without even a star to guide them and a wind fast springing up, surrounded by a display of electricity, that viewed from a place of safety would have been magnificent, but situated as they were was a terrible menace, they had no alternative.

The boy captain of theGolden Eaglestuck bravely to his wheel and time and again when the vessel gave a sickening “duck,” he righted her in the nick of time with a skilful adjustment of his planes and compensating balances. Neither boy spoke—indeed, in the roar of the elements that now surrounded them, it would have been difficult to hear. Crash followed crash so swiftly that like the lightning display it seemed all blended into one long horrible glare and uproar. Still, mercifully, it had not rained.

Harry crawled forward after a time from his seat by the engine and shouted in Frank’s ear:

“Where are we now?”

“Driving due east, I should judge.”

“Have you any hope that we can make a landing?”

Frank shook his head.

“Not in this.”

“Then there is only one thing to be done?”

“Yes.”

“Keep on driving her?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Good Lord!” thought Harry, “if the gasolene would hold out we’d land in Europe.”

The above conversation was not carried on in consecutive order as reported. The exigencies of guiding the craft, and the noise of the storm, made that an impossibility. Fragmentary sentences were all the boys could exchange, but they understood one another so well that with them a word meant as much as a whole sentence.

On and on drove the plunging craft and still the accident both boys had feared—the short circuiting of the engine—had not occurred. Could it be that they were going to weather it after all? Wild as the thought appeared, it put new heart into them.

“Do you know where we are?” asked Harry, clinging to the forward rail of the pilot-house.

“Not the slightest idea,” was the reply, “but I should say we cannot be far from the sea.”

The sea! The realization of this new peril sent a chill of terror through both boys. Once blown out to sea and they would stand not a chance of rescue.

“Hadn’t we better chance it and drop where we are?” asked Harry at length.

Frank shook a negative response.

“It would mean certain death—we should be dashed to pieces,” he said; “if we keep on we’ve got a fighting chance.”

As they were urged along before the storm Harry opened the trap in the pilot-house floor and peered through. By the blue illumination of the constant lightning display, he could see that they were still driving over the tree-tops. They were then still over solid land.

There was not a light to be seen, however, and wherever they were, they had been driven out of the civilized part of Nicaragua it seemed. The boys’ hearts sank as they gazed at the character of the country over which they were racing along. AsFrank had said, there was not a chance for them to land there. They might ride the storm out if they kept on going—that was all they could do.

Once Frank entertained a desperate thought of heading the ship about, but as he put the helm over she gave such a frightful yaw that both boys thought the minute was their last. TheGolden Eagleplunged down in a sickening swerve till it seemed that she could never right herself. Frantically Frank, although he could hardly keep his feet on the inclined pilot-house floor, which was pitched over at an angle of forty-five degrees, fought to bring her back on an even keel with one hand, while he clung to the pilot-house rail with the other.

After what had seemed an eternity of suspense the craft answered her helm and regulating planes and regained her balance. The scare the boys had received, though, prevented them from trying any more experiments. Thoroughly exhausted Frank at last relinquished the wheel to Harry, at the latter’s earnest solicitation. As the boys changed places the ship, none too steady under the conditions, gave a lurch to port that threw Frank from his feet and sent him crashing against the left-hand rail of the pilot-house.The force of the impact of his body snapped off the stanchions that supported the canvas screening round the pilot-box and he would have shot over the edge into countless feet of space if Harry had not grasped him and hauled him back to safety. Frank thanked him with a look. It was no time for words.

“Hark,” suddenly cried Frank, as there came a lull in the storm, “what is that?”

Below them both boys could hear a long, booming sound.

“It’s the surf breaking on the beach!” groaned Frank, “only Providence can save us now.”

How much longer they drove on above the sea, they had no means of reckoning, even if they had cared to. Their only hope was in daylight when there was a chance that some ship might see them and pick them up. Harry sat grimly at the wheel, keeping the creaking ship dead before the wind, which had now increased.

“It’s not much use,” he shouted to Frank, who lay on the pilot-house floor so as to keep the center of equilibrium as low as possible, “but we might as well stick to it as long as the engine does.”

Frank nodded and shouted back his favorite “While there’s life there’s hope.”

Suddenly, while an unusually prolonged and vivid flash enveloped theGolden Eagleand showed a wild sea leaping hungrily below her, Harry gave a loud shout:

“Frank, Frank,” he yelled, “look there!”

He pointed a little to the north of the direction theGolden Eaglewas taking, or rather being driven, which, though the boys did not know it, was due east.

The elder brother raised his head above the pilot-house railing but the flash that illumined the object that caused Harry’s exclamation had died out.

“It was a steamer and she’ll pass right below us,” roared Harry.

“How can we attract their attention,” shouted back Frank.

“There’s one chance in a thousand and we’ll take it,” was the response of the youth at the wheel.

“Send out a wireless call.”

Frank leaped to the sending apparatus of theGolden Eagle’swireless plant. To his delirious delight it was working perfectly despite the ship’s buffeting.

Even as he stripped off the cover, and lowered the ground rope which was interwoven with strands of phosphor bronze wire, though, he realized what a long chance it was they were taking. The steamer was nearer by this time. They could in fact see her lights below them; but she seemed a small craft, as well as they in their frenzied excitement at the sudden vision of hope that flamed up in them, could make out. It was unlikely she carried wireless. But, as Harry had said, it was one chance in a thousand. With a fervent prayer that it might be that ten hundredth chance, Frank sent the spark flashing and leaping across the crackling gap.

Dot—dot—dot! Dot—dot! Dot—dot—dot!

It was the universal signal of desperate need that his trembling fingers spelled out: S. O. S.![1]

If there were a ship fitted with wireless within the radius of their call she would come to their assistance, but both boys realized that that help would be too late to do them any good. Their one chance lay in securing the immediate attention of the craft below them.

“Fire your revolver, Harry!” shouted Frank, bending above the flaring sender spark.

The younger boy drew his magazine gun from his belt and fired all ten bullets it contained in a string of reports.

There came a blinding glare of lightning. In its radiance the boys, high in the air, could see below them the scene on the steamer as if in the light of day. The men on the steamer had evidently also seen them or heard the reports of Harry’s revolver, or what was more likely, received the wireless flash. Men were running about her decks and on the bridge the boys could see some one, evidently in command, issuing orders to several sailors who were casting loose a boat.

Their inspection was cut short. As the next flash revealed to them a boat being lowered over the side of the vessel and men pointing up at them, something parted with a loud crack.

It was one of the rudder wires that had carried away and a more serious accident at that moment could not have well befallen them. TheGolden Eaglewithout her rudder controls heeled over drunkenly till, with a loud crashing sound, her engine was ripped clean out of her by its own weight.

The next minute the boys felt themselves dropping through what seemed endless space down to the roaring sea.

Even as they fell Frank realized that the parting of the engine from its bed had been a piece of good luck for them for relieved of that weight, there was a chance of the aeroplane floating by her own buoyancy till the boat could pick them up. All this shot through his mind in a second, and almost as it occurred to him he felt the aeroplane hit the water with a mighty thump. The next moment Frank felt the water close above his head and began fighting desperately to regain the surface.

Fortunately both he and Harry were skilled swimmers and as much at home in the water as Newfoundland dogs. As Frank at last found himself safe, clinging to the top of the half-submerged aeroplane, he anxiously looked about him for Harry. What he feared was that Harry might have got entangled in the stay wires or tiller ropes as theGolden Eaglefell into the sea.

To Frank’s unspeakable relief, however, at this juncture, he heard his name called right behind him, and a second later he had fished Harry out of the sea and hauled him up beside him on to the gradually sinking wreck of theGolden Eagle. They both joined in a lusty shout to attract the attention of the men in the boat they had seen lowered just before their dizzy fall.

Their shouts were hardly needed, however, for, from the bridge of the vessel, there shot out a long finger of radiance from the searchlight which, after sweeping about a few times, fell full on the boys. Drenched as they were they could not forbear waving their hands and giving a cheer as its light fell full on them.

Fifteen minutes later the Boy Aviators were on board the insurgent gunboatGeneral Estradaand safe.

1. S. O. S. is now the wireless distress call. C. Q. D., the former tocsin having being used by too many would-be humorous amateurs to make its continuance advisable.—Author’s note.

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