CHAPTER XVIII.
WHAT IT DID.
The moments that followed were filled with a tenser excitement than anyof the lads had ever known before. After the first frightened flurry ofthe alarmed creatures of the forest, a deep silence prevailed. Itlasted for possibly fifteen minutes, and then the professor decided notto test their nerves to the breaking point.
“Turn on the searchlight!” came the breathed command.
A sharp click followed, as the light, which was supplied by currentfrom the storage battery, was switched on.
A dazzling white pencil of light swept all about the _Discoverer_. Itsbrilliancy pierced the night like a saber, and illumined the solemntrees and the open savannah all about.
At almost precisely the same instant, a chorus of ferocious yells andcries broke out, and from all sides there rushed on the aerialadventurers a horde of short-statured Indians. The searchlight showedthem to be wild-looking men, clothed in a single garment, their headscovered with straight black hair. Through their lower lips most of themhad thrust a triangular bit of white stone with a sharp point. Thisadded to their fantastic appearance.
Nat noted that one of them, larger in stature than the rest, seemed tobe the leader. He also saw, with an unpleasant thrill, that theycarried long blow pipes. It was through these pipes, the professor hadsaid, that the poisoned arrows were discharged.
Rope in hand, ready to slip at the word of command, Nat stood hisground. On the opposite side of the framework Joe was likewise waiting.Neither boy budged an inch, and Ding-dong stood steady as a rock at hisengines.
So suddenly had it all happened, in fact, that neither boy could regardit for an instant as more than a dream.
Suddenly something struck the metal framework by Nat’s head with asharp ping!
It was an arrow, and so close had it come to the lad that he had caughtits whistling sound as it sped past his ear.
“Phew! This is warm work, with a vengeance,” he muttered.
He saw the Indians give a sudden concerted onrush, yelling like maniacs.
“Keep the searchlight in their eyes. It dazzles them!” called theprofessor.
Then came another command.
“Let go your ropes!”
Nat and Joe instantly dropped their ropes and seized up rifles.
“Don’t fire!” cried the professor sharply. “We don’t want to injurethem if we can help it.”
The great dirigible swayed for an instant and then began to rise.
“Turn on your power!” shouted the professor.
The bell for “full speed ahead” rang sharply out. At the same instantthe propeller began to whir.
As it did so, several Indians, who, in their onrush on the dirigible,had clambered upon it, were thrown off in all directions. They rolledover and over, like so many footballs. This made the others pause aninstant, and in that instant the dirigible rose from the ground.
But the chill night air had condensed the gas, and she rose slowly.Before more than five feet had been gained in her upward rise, theIndians recovered from their amazement and charged like a pack offuries.
“Flat on your faces!” shouted the professor, as a shower of arrowspinged and pattered in the framework of the craft.
They obeyed the command, and then Nat saw the queer gun brought intouse. The professor raised it to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
Instantly a stream of colored balls, like those that issue from a Romancandle, poured from the bell-like muzzle. But almost simultaneouslywith their discharge, they burst with sharp reports, and the whole airbecame impregnated with a black, all-obscuring smoke as thick as aLondon fog.
The dense clouds spread on every side, completely obscuring thedirigible from the view of the Indians below. Higher and higher sherose, while below her the dense smoke veiled everything like a curtain.Nat caught a whiff of the vapor, and it made him cough and choke.
“I’ll bet those Indians aren’t enjoying it,” he thought to himself. “Sothat was what that queer gun was.”
In a few moments they were high above the tree-tops, and the professorordered the lights turned on. A switch was pushed over by Mr. Tubbs inthe pilot-house, and the _Discoverer_ blazed out with incandescentslike an illuminated battleship. For a few seconds nothing much was donebut to exchange congratulations. No one was hurt, and not an arrow hadpierced the gas bag. This was accounted for by the fact that theIndians, not understanding how vulnerable that part of the craft was,had confined their volleys to the occupants of the lower structure.
“A most fortunate escape,” declared the professor, but suddenly heclapped his hand to his head.
“My hat!” he cried wildly, “I’ve lost another hat.”
“Here it is!” cried Joe, picking up the article of headgear.
He held it up, transfixed by an arrow. The missile had penetrated itand whisked it from the professor’s head without touching him.
“I wouldn’t have lost that for worlds,” said the professor, thankingJoe, and removing the arrow very gingerly.
“One scratch from that arrow would result in death,” he said, inexplanation of his extreme care.
He held it out for the boys’ inspection. It had a stone head,discolored by some whitish matter at the tip. The shank of it was abouttwo feet long, with some sort of cloth wrapped around the end to makeit fit the blowpipe tightly.
“What kind of poison do they use?” asked Joe.
“An infusion of the St. Ignatius plant, from the beans of whichstrychnine, our deadliest narcotic, is obtained,” was the response.
“We’d better make a thorough search for any other arrows,” suggestedNat.
“I think so,” agreed the professor; “they are not the sort of things tohave lying about.”
A search of the _Discoverer’s_ lower structure resulted in the findingof a dozen or more of the deadly missiles. These were all thrown offinto the air at once.
“And now,” said the professor, planting his hat firmly on his head, “Isuppose you are anxious to know something about that queer gun I used.”
A chorus of assent greeted this remark.
“Well, it’s a weapon called the Fog-maker, and was invented by a friendof mine especially for use in aerial warfare, or for protecting a smallvessel from hostile aeroplanes,” said the professor. “As you saw, itworks perfectly, throwing out a thick cloud of dark, acrid smoke, whichis heavier than the atmosphere. While it has no permanent bad results,yet it renders those who breathe it insensible for a time.”
“It is indeed an effective weapon,” declared Nat; “can we see one ofthe projectiles?”
The professor took up the gun and slid open a small space in the stock.Then, pressing a metal button, he caused two round black objects, aboutthe size of small oranges, to roll out into his hand.
“The magazine holds ten of these,” he said. “They are made of glass andfilled with chemicals.”
“What kind of chemicals?” asked Joe.
“Ah! That is the secret of the inventor,” was the reply, “nobody but hehimself knows what they contain; but that they are effective, you mustadmit. He told me that the old ‘stink-pots’ that Chinese pirates usedto use gave him the idea. If ever there is a war in the air, I thinkthat the nation equipped with this invention will have a powerfulimplement of havoc.”
“I should think so,” said Nat; “one whiff of it was quite enough forme.”
All this time, by the professor’s directions, the dirigible had beenswung in wide circles at an altitude of about fifteen hundred feet. Sointerested had they all been in the professor’s description of thenovel aeroplane gun, and in the other matters that had occupied theirattention, that the big air cruiser had not yet been “tidied up.”
This was the next task to demand their attention. Joe set to work tohoist up and coil the rope which had been cast loose when the hastyascent was made. But he hadn’t given it more than a couple of tugsbefore he uttered a shout t
hat brought the others, except Mr. Tubbs,who was at the helm, running along the substructure to his side.
“What’s up now?” demanded Nat.
“Why, either this rope has caught in something below, or there’ssomething heavy attached to it,” was the astonishing response.
“Impossible for it to have caught,” declared the professor, “we are nowfifteen hundred feet or more above the surface of the earth, and therope is not more than a hundred feet long, at the most.”
“Well, feel it yourself,” responded Joe.
Nat gave the rope a tug. As Joe had said, there was clearly somethingheavy attached to the end of it. But what could it be?
“We’ll soon see,” said the professor. “Master Joe, attach anotherlength of rope to it, and then have Master Bell switch power on theelectric winch.”
This was done, and the powerful winch began to revolve, winding therope on its barrel. As the rope began to grow shorter, the boys peeredover the edge of the substructure in an effort to make out what couldbe at the end of it. The glow of light spread by the illuminated craftsoon showed them.
“It’s a man!” shouted Nat in a thunderstruck voice, as the figure of ahuman being, clinging desperately to the rope, was brought into view.