CHAPTER XXII.
IN AN AEROPLANE IN AN ELECTRIC STORM.
The boys were for pressing on at once but the deliberate Ben Stubbsinsisted on a stop being made to “overhaul ship,” as he put it, meaningto tend to the injuries they had all received from the hail of flyingrocks driven like small shot by the blast. Had it not been for theprospector’s shouted warning to “lie flat” they would undoubtedly havefared worse. As it was a few cuts, that looked alarming but reallydidn’t amount to much, constituted the worst of their injuries.
Lighting his pipe Ben sat down by the battery-box and took what hecalled a “comft’ble smoke,” of palm-bark tobacco of his own manufacture,before he would stir a foot. After that he consented to press forwardand, carrying the long stick brought for the purpose of reaching thechain, the little party started on the last stage of their journey.Grappling it with the long stick Frank brought the chain to the side onwhich they stood without the slightest difficulty.
“So that’s the cable you crossed on,” commented Ben, “an’ to think thatit was hanging there all these two years and I never knowed it.”
“I wonder you never thought of making a bridge, Ben?” commented Harry.
“Wall, now,” drawled Ben sarcastically, “I might have done that,mightn’t I, ’ef I could have carried a big enough stick of timber downhere.”
“I didn’t think of that,” replied the abashed Harry, while the otherboys laughed.
“Ah, there’s a lot of things that younkers don’t think of,” respondedBen sagely; “now when I was aboard the old Dolphin, bound roun’ the Hornfor China——”
“Never mind that now, Ben,” broke in Frank impatiently, “let’s get backto camp. I’m simply dying for a good feed and a sight of the _GoldenEagle_.”
The mention of the aeroplane was an impetus to everybody—the boysbecause it meant getting back to La Merced and relieving the anxiety ofthe people there; Billy because with a reporter’s instinct he grewrestless when kept out of touch with the world no matter what excitingadventures he might have passed through, and Ben Stubbs out ofpardonable curiosity to see what he called a “full-rigged air-ship.”
One by one the adventurers swung across the chasm which had been sonearly the cause of their death in the tunnel, and when Ben Stubbs, whocame last, handed the end of the chain to Frank, the leader of the partyhung it upon the hook where it had rested so many years with a peculiarfeeling that neither he nor any other man would ever use it again.
An hour later they emerged into the bright sunlight through the RockingStone gate as they had dubbed it. The boys made a careful examination ofits hidden mechanism as they passed out, but the Toltec mechanics whohad put the hidden springs that connected it with the quesal’s eye haddone their work well, and the young adventurers were no wiser aftertheir examination than they had been before it.
The Treasure Cliff camp was just as they had left it and it seemedcurious to gaze on their familiar surroundings and find them unchangedafter such a strenuous period of hardship and adventure as they hadencountered. Without losing time they at once started down themountain-side for the _Golden Eagle_ camp. Here also, things wereunchanged and the boys, after a careful scrutiny of their prize craft,announced her fit for a voyage at any time.
It was decided, after a hasty consultation, that they would start for LaMerced that night as soon as it was dark. Ben Stubbs and Billy were tobe left to guard the camp. Billy remarking:
“I’ll be glad to get a rest. If we are asleep when you come back, tellthe maid to wake us.”
“And to think that a few nights ago I was a watching yer camp-fire andringing the bell and—now—here I am!” remarked Ben wonderingly.
The afternoon was spent in examining the rubies and talking overexperiences. Frank, too, drew a rough map of the mines, so that when itbecame feasible to return to and ransack them of the treasure theprocess would be simplified. While the boys employed themselves in thisway, Ben Stubbs borrowed a rifle and strode off into the jungle. Hereturned shortly before dark with a young wild pig and several brace ofwood pigeons. He prepared these with a skill that bespoke his longexperience at shifting for himself and when he announced that supper wasready by pounding on the bottom of a saucepan with a spoon, the boyswere ready to fall to and eat the meal of their lives.
They were just concluding the meal when there was a low, far offrumble—like that of an approaching thunder storm. It was deeper,however, and longer sustained.
“There’s a storm coming,” exclaimed Frank and Harry simultaneously.
Ben Stubbs gravely set down his coffee and shook his head.
“Worse’n that, I’m afraid. Sounds to me like the first symptoms of whatthe greasers call ‘terremoto.’”
“What’s that?” demanded Billy.
“Why, that’s an airthquake,” replied Ben, “and every once in a whilewhen they do come, they raise par’ticlar dickens. Ef you two youngfellers is thinking of making a trip in that thar sky-jammer of yoursto-night, you’d better get a move on with your start,” he went on,addressing Frank and Harry, “fer when thar comes an airthquake tharcomes an almighty big wind right on its heels.”
The boys exchanged looks of concern. It was most important—nayurgent—that they should get to La Merced that night, or at any rate bymorning, and set their father’s mind at rest concerning their safety. Asudden wind storm would mean that the _Golden Eagle_ would have to makesuch a struggle for life as she never had before.
“We’ll have to chance it,” decided Frank finally, “after all it must besome distance off and we must get to La Merced to-night. If we don’t, wemay be delayed several days and in that event we won’t know what mighthappen. We don’t want mother in New York to hear that we are lost;” headded gravely. This consideration wiped out at once whatever hesitancythey might have felt.
The preparations for launching the _Golden Eagle_ were simple. Judgingthat he could not improve on the “backing-up” method he had adopted thelast time they sailed from the plateau camp, on the memorable occasionof Billy’s rescue, Frank adopted the same tactics with the result thatthey secured a perfect start, and shot into the darkness with thegracefulness and velocity of a homing pigeon.
It was pitchy dark and in the air there was a hot sulphurous feeling.Not a breath of wind stirred, and if one had lit a candle its flamewould have gone straight up without a flicker. Before sunset a heavybank of lurid-rimmed clouds had loomed up in the southwest.
“Something is coming,” said Frank as with one eye on the map and theother on the compass in the lighted binnacle, he steered the _GoldenEagle_ steadily through the ominous blackness.
“Well, we’ve got to keep on now,” replied Harry, “we can’t turn backvery well and make a landing on the plateau in such darkness as this.”
As he spoke a long tongue of livid blue lightning flickered across thesky to the north. It lit up every wire and stay on the _Golden Eagle_,as if she had been enveloped in the glow of a blue calcium light. In aninstant the illumination died out and it grew as black as ever, orrather the darkness seemed all the more impenetrable to the navigatorsof the _Golden Eagle_, by reason of the brilliant illumination that hadjust shattered it.
As they tore along, the engine chugging steadily in a whining purr likethe steady voice of a big dynamo, the flashes grew more and morefrequent.
“Looks as if we are in for it,” remarked Frank.
At the same instant a few heavy drops of rain pattered down on thecovering of the planes and then stopped as suddenly as they commenced.
“How far do you figure we are from La Merced, now?” asked Harry after along silence in which the lightning had kept the aeroplane illuminatedin an almost constant blaze of lambent flame.
“Not more than twenty miles,” returned Frank, “we must make it beforethis hits us or——”
He did not mention the alternative. There was no need to. Both boys knewthat anything more risky than handling an aerop
lane in a gale of windcould not be imagined.
More and more frequent grew the lightning flashes and they were nowaccompanied by terrific peals of thunder, that seemed to shake every riband stanchion of the aeroplane.
“It’s an electric storm and a bad one, too,” exclaimed Frank, as ahissing bolt of lightning tore across the sky as it seemed only a fewfeet from the laboring aeroplane and struck the earth with a terrificreport. Save for the first few warm drops there had been no rain andboth boys were inwardly thankful for this. They believed the _GoldenEagle_ could force her way through a rain storm, but they did not wantto try. For an aeroplane, rain is almost as unfavorable an element aswind.
So filled with electricity was the air that occasionally after aparticularly vivid flash, the metal portions of the _Golden Eagle_ wereoutlined in living fire. This added a new terror to the boys’ position.
What if the engine short-circuited?
Almost as the thought flashed across their minds the _Golden Eagle_seemed to become suddenly enveloped in a perfect sheet of fire. The boyscould hear the hiss of the live electricity as it ran along her staywires and stanchions. Blinded and half stunned, they realized as theglare crashed out that it must have short-circuited something.
With a great sigh of relief, however, Frank realized that the engine wasstill running sweet and true. He glanced at the binnacle.
Ah, that was it!
The dynamo had been short-circuited and they had no means ofilluminating the compass. True they had matches, but it would beimpossible to steer the _Golden Eagle’s_ course true by that means. Theaccident was serious.
Hurriedly Frank communicated his discovery to Harry. The younger brotherwhistled.
“What on earth are we going to do, Frank?” he gasped out.
“Keep right on till we drop. It’s all we can do,” was the sternrejoinder, “we can’t pick up La Merced, without a binnacle light.”