The Phantom Airman

"Scorpio– But who Scorpio is I can't make out. It must have been some passing airman, for it cannot have been one of our own patrols."

"Phew! The mystery deepens. Get the patrols out at once, and tell them to take plenty of ammunition with them. It will take a few rounds to scare off those Bedouin fiends if once they get round a carcase where there are such pickings."

"I don't think there's much to worry about in that respect. Those Arabs have a wholesome fear of these air-liners, sir. However, I will get the machines off at once."

CHAPTER XIV

BETRAYED BY THE CAMERA

The order was quickly given for the aerial police scouts to start. Within a few minutes the patrols left Cairo and the adjoining air-stations, and, spreading out fan-wise, they crossed the Canal, the Gulf of Sinai, the wild mountainous peninsula which bears the same name, and the Hedjaz coast, until they entered the desert regions beyond. Then they commenced their search by moonlight for the battered and drifting air-liner over the trackless, desert lands which lie between the 28th and the 30th parallels.

By a pre-arranged system of Very lights, the patrols kept each other informed of their exact positions during the night, and watched keenly the eastern horizon for any response which might come from the belated airship.

Meanwhile the air-liner, fighting manfully against the freshening wind, made very slow progress, and drifted still further and further away from her course. The air was full of wireless messages both from Cairo and the patrols, but she was as yet unable to reply and define her position. The engineer and wireless operator, however, had been able to receive some of the messages indistinctly, and they knew at any rate that help was not far away.

The captain was naturally very much depressed by the turn of events. Somehow he felt that he had not acted very heroically in the matter. He had considered the safety of his distinguished passengers perhaps too much.

"If I had had no passengers to consider, I would have remained aloft until the whole liner had been shot to ribbons!" he declared to himself, when he at last retired for a few minutes to his private cabin. "They should never have taken me alive! But there, my instructions stand–the safety of the passengers and crew before anything else. I was a fool, though, to act as I did. I ought to have sent out the S.O.S. to Cairo without a second's delay, instead of arguing with this brigand; but there, whoever expected to encounter anything like this?"

Then as his thoughts turned to the wonderful machine, he endeavoured to docket all the information he could remember about the brigand's aeroplane, for he knew that he would be expected to recount every detail when he met the court of enquiry, "which," he murmured, "is as certain to take place as to-morrow's sunrise.

"Gee whiz! Three hundred miles an hour, and silent engines to boot! Phew! nobody will believe me, anyhow. Still, I shall have to face the music, and also to explain why I have lost a hundred thousand pounds of specie," and the skipper looked down on the white sands below, and for a moment he almost contemplated suicide.

"I wouldn't mind if I could only bring sufficient information to the authorities to lead to the speedy capture of the villain, but I can't. There wasn't time even for a photograph. The bandit was aware of all that, and I understand that every camera was removed from the airship before he let us go."

At that instant there came a slight tap at the cabin door.

"Come in!" cried the commander, expecting some further report from the sick-berth steward about the condition of the maharajah, who, half an hour ago, was said to be showing signs of recovery, owing to the bracing air at three thousand feet.

The door opened, and Gadget, the ship's mascot, appeared. Now Gadget's newest hobby was photography, and through the kindness of the photographic officer he had become the proud possessor of a small pocket camera.

"I got her, sir! Thought you'd like to see her … begging your pardon," and Gadget, with his dirty, but sunny, smiling face stopped short and pulled his lock of hair by way of salute, as the captain pulled him up sharply by snapping out:–

"Got whom? Like to see whom, Gadget?"

"The 'Clutchin' Hand,' sir," explained Gadget, who now found himself floored for once by his want of English.

"I don't understand, boy?"

"The bloke what played the dirty on us, sir," replied the boy, opening wide his bright blue eyes, and holding out three wet and recently developed pocket films.

"Him what got the swag, sir," continued the urchin, endeavouring to make himself clear.

"Oh, you mean that you photographed the brigand!" replied the skipper as he caught sight of the negatives, and snatched at them eagerly, a new light coming into his eyes.

"Yessir!" exclaimed the lad. "Him what said he was a King of the Desert."

"Gadget!" exclaimed the captain, after a brief examination of the films, which were really three fine, clearly defined pictures of the Scorpion, showing her in mid-air, when alongside the Empress.

"Yessir," replied the excited youth, not yet certain whether he was going to be hanged or praised for his offence.

"You have shown more wit and skill than anyone on board the airship. You shall be well rewarded for this, I promise you. How on earth you managed to get three good snapshots like these, all showing different angles of the machine, and to hide them away, is beyond me!"

"Thank you, sir! Thought you'd like 'em," and the boy's eyes sparkled even more than ever as the captain shook him by the hand, and planted five new, crisp Bradburys therein, then dismissed him.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed the captain, "but that little urchin's saved my reputation. These photographs may prove of more value to the authorities than the lost treasure. I feel a different man. Here is extraordinary evidence against the culprit. One photograph shows the fiend actually firing a burst at the twin engines in the rear gondola, and another the faces of the two occupants above the fuselage. They will show more evidence still when they have been enlarged." And the captain, after carefully drying them, placed them in an envelope and put them into his inner coat pocket, muttering:–

"Smart little beggar! I wish I hadn't punished him the other day for smuggling that tobacco aboard."

The captain, who had left strict instructions that he should be called half an hour before the end of the watch, in order that he might relieve the navigating officer, was just about to lie down on the couch for a brief spell, when suddenly another knock at his cabin door startled him, and immediately after his servant entered and announced: "Seven bells, sir."

"Already?" exclaimed the captain.

"Yes, sir."

"Has the moon set, yet?"

"Yes, it is quite dark now, sir."

"All right. Tell the navigating officer that I'll be down in one moment."

At this very instant the telephone bell which connected the cabin with the navigating gondola rang furiously. Snatching up the receiver, the captain asked, "What's the matter, Donaldson? Is there another raider on the starboard bow?"

"No, sir, but there's something very much like a signal flash away in the north-west."

"Sure it wasn't a shooting star?"

"More like a Very light, sir, but very faint," replied the navigating officer. "Shall I reply, sir?"

"Yes, give him three red lights. I expect it's one of the patrols looking for us. I'm coming down now," and the captain replaced the receiver, and made haste down the corridor which led to the chart and navigation room.

The next instant three red balls of fire fell from the airship earthwards in rapid succession, and within a couple of minutes a faint gleam of greenish light fell like an arc in the north-western sky.

"Yes, the patrols have found us, sure enough," exclaimed the captain, who had now joined the officer.

After several further exchanges of fire-balls, repeated now from two or three quarters, the searchers closed in upon the straggler. Then a rapid dialogue took place by means of the morse lamp, and, when dawn came, shortly afterwards, no less than six fighting scouts, running at about a quarter throttle, surrounded the wounded leviathan, and escorted her towards Cairo.

When the Empress reached that town, she was already twenty-four hours overdue at London, so the cables and the wireless stations were busy with messages relating to the missing liner, and with more than one inquiry as to the safety of her cargo, evidently from the consignees, or more likely still, from the underwriters.

And when the captain told his story to the Commissioner of Aerial Police at Cairo there was another mighty stir, and both the cables and the wireless were busy again, for the whole civilized world was tingling with excitement to know something tangible about this man of mystery–the phantom airman. And the story of Gadget's photographs was told to the world.

CHAPTER XV

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

While the events recorded in the last few chapters were taking place, a series of adventures not less exciting and perilous had befallen the two airmen, Keane and Sharpe, in their endeavours to track that ingenious conspirator, Professor Rudolf Weissmann, in his secret retreat within the dark recesses of the Schwarzwald.

After their midnight consultation with Colonel Tempest at Scotland Yard, their instructions were to proceed early next day, by whatever aircraft was then available, to Germany, and once there to adopt some suitable disguise, and institute forthwith a most rigorous search for the secret aerodrome. They were to leave no stone unturned in their efforts to track down this great German irreconcilable, who had dared to hold a pistol at the civilized world, and to bring back, if possible, some tangible clue concerning his two great discoveries.