The Phantom Airman

"There, right up in the blue vault of heaven," said the judge, pointing out the speck which now seemed to have grown larger.

"Why, it is a bird; some great vulture of the desert. It seems to be diving right down upon us! These vultures, I hear, have often attacked the airships in the desert. It evidently takes us for some new kind of prey."

"A bird!" cried the captain, who had now joined the speakers. "Let me see it?"

"There it is!" cried the two men simultaneously, pointing out the grey, swift phantom.

The captain saw the bird-like object, and one glance sufficed.

"It is an aeroplane," he said, and there was just a touch of uneasiness in his voice.

"An aeroplane?" echoed the others, and an instant later, viewing it through his glasses, the colonel added:–

"Why, so it is; but I say, Captain, what a peculiar type of aeroplane! It is one of the patrols, I expect, come to meet us."

"Your glasses, if you please, for one moment," asked the captain, and he almost snatched them from the hands of the officer.

The next instant a violent expletive burst from the captain's lips.

Leaving his companions, he dashed down the corridor to the wireless operator's room. The operator was already engaged in conversation with the aerial visitor by means of the wireless telephone, and the captain took in the situation at a glance.

"What does he want? Who is he?" blurted out the skipper.

CHAPTER X

THE BRIGAND OF THE EASTERN SKIES

"Someone has signalled us to stop, Captain!" said the wireless operator.

"Who is it?" demanded the irate skipper.

"He will not declare himself, sir!"

"Hand me that receiver, Robson!" and the commander, clamping the ear-piece of the wireless telephone to his ear, asked of the intruder, "Who are you that thus dares to order me to stop on a lawful voyage?"

"It is I, Sultan von Selim, Air-King of the Hamadian Desert, who orders you to stop!" came the reply from the aerial raider, who now rode just a little way above the large airship, and on the starboard side.

"Then I refuse!" thundered the skipper.

"You will do so at your peril," came the quiet, cool reply, which rather disconcerted the captain.

"I will call up the patrols, you brigand!" continued the commander of the liner.

"One word to the patrols and I will blow your wireless to pieces. I have two guns already trained on it," replied the air-king.

"I dare you to do it!" replied the brave skipper. Then, turning to the operator, he said, "Send the S.O.S. with the latitude and longitude to the patrols. Smartly there, Robson."

"Yes, sir."

"This is that raider we heard of at Delhi, but he can't touch us."

The raider, however, had caught the sentence, or part of it, and he understood the order. The next instant a burst of fire from a machine gun, trained with wonderful accuracy, blew the main part of the wireless apparatus to pieces, and rendered it perfectly useless for either receiving or transmitting. How the captain and the operator escaped injury or death will for ever remain a mystery.

Seizing a megaphone, the former dashed out of the cabin, down the keel corridor and the narrow slip-way, to the central touring gondola on the starboard side, and, shaking his fist at the raider, who sailed calmly alongside about a hundred feet away, shouted through the instrument: "You brigand! You shall hang for this!"

A mocking laugh, drowned by the roar of the engines, which still continued full speed ahead, was the only reply. Evidently this mad airman was enjoying the fun immensely. At any rate he appeared very careless of the other's threats.

"I mean it, you felon!" roared the skipper.

"Are you going to heave to?" came the the reply through the raider's megaphone.

"No, certainly not!"

"Then you must take the consequence!" came the mocking taunt, and the next instant, "Rep-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!" came another burst from that deadly machine-gun, which seemed so effective every time it spoke.

This time the starboard engine, a 250-H.P. motor, conked out entirely, and, for a moment, there was danger of fire in the gondola, owing to the petrol-feed being smashed in the general break-up.

This made the captain think furiously. He now recognised, for the first time, that he was absolutely at the mercy of this strange highwayman of the air. Evidently he was a determined character, a master criminal, and the skipper looked round for some means of defence.

There was certainly an old machine-gun aboard the airship, but it had never been used and was not even mounted, for it was believed that a peaceful trader would never need it. The police patrols constituted the real defence of the trade routes, and even with them a few smugglers were the chief offenders.

The captain's eyes were fixed for the next few seconds on the wonderful machine which sailed along so easily and so quietly. Once, he had noticed, when the raider made a circuit of the great liner, that the machine had shot ahead at twice or thrice the speed of the Empress. The armoured conning-tower, over the top of which the heads of the pilot and his companion could just be seen, gave the skipper an impression of strength, against which he knew that even if he could have replied with a machine gun, the bullets would have pattered harmlessly against the sides, and fallen away like rain-drops.

He was in a quandary, this brave air-skipper. He had missed his chance of calling up the patrols. Yet, how could he, a British captain, surrender to some foreign marauder, or perhaps even to a British renegade; for he knew not as yet who this bold fellow was. Then he thought of his passengers, those distinguished guests committed to his charge, and last of all of the valuable lading: that consignment of gold for the vaults of the Bank of England.

"By heaven, it's the gold they're after!" he exclaimed. "I never thought of it before. They've had the news ahead of us and they've waited for the airship in this out-of-the-world spot. Confound them, but they shan't get it if I can help it!" and the captain nerved himself to still further resistance, though he felt it was hopeless, unless some outlying patrol should come up quickly.

The raider seemed to have read his thoughts, for he sailed close up again, and shouted through his megaphone, "For the last time, Captain, will you heave to?"

"No–o!" the courageous man replied, though this time his voice wavered a bit, for he wondered what devilry the stranger would attempt next.

He had not long to wait, for the pirate suddenly banked his machine, turned swiftly outwards, and circling round till he came up level with the great twin-engine in the rear gondola, which drove the giant propeller near the rudder, he opened once more a terrific burst of fire which instantly put both engines out of action.

This almost brought the huge liner to a stop. At any rate, she now made more leeway than headway, for the only remaining engines which could now be used were those in the foremost gondola and port centre cabin.

"Stop!" signalled the captain to the remaining engineers in charge of those engines.

And the next instant the huge, looming mass, with her engines silent, lay there helpless, levering away to windward, shorn of her pride, and with the wreckage hanging loose from her rear and central gondolas.

Another surprise that now awaited the crew and passengers of the air-liner was to see the phantom raider careering wildly around the beaten giant at enormous speed, in almost perfect silence, though his two propellers raced wildly as he dipped, spun and rolled to celebrate his victory, and to show off his amazing powers to the victims.

"Good heavens!" ejaculated the captain as he watched all this. "It was only too true, then, what we heard at Delhi."

"You mean about the silent engines and the speed of three hundred miles an hour," added the navigating officer, who now stood by the skipper.

"Yes. It's some amazing conspiracy. I cannot help admiring the rascals, though I should like to hang the pair of them."

"Hullo! here he comes again. I wonder what he wants this time," and the next instant the raider throttled down, and came close up to the gondola, shouting as he did so in perfectly good English:–