The Phantom Airman

But Keane shook his head, as he remarked: "Neither Hans nor yet the woodcutter could possibly have told the professor our names. This evil genius must have other sources of information at his command. Possibly he has an agent at Mulhausen aerodrome, or even at Scotland Yard. To a man like this, a thousand ways are open. I cannot say, but this I know, we are on the edge of the biggest mystery I have ever encountered."

"And we might easily have shot him. Bah! it would have been better to have fired, Keane," added Sharpe somewhat bitterly. "Cannot we follow him now?"

"No!" replied his companion, firmly. "It is better as it is."

"Why?" demanded the other.

"Rest content, Sharpe," said Keane. "To-day we have discovered the aerodrome; to-morrow we will capture it."

CHAPTER XIX

THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP

Patiently, now, the two Englishmen waited for the dawn. Till then it would not be safe to move in any direction. As they lay in the long bracken and ferns, however, they were able to converse quietly, and to discuss their plans for the coming day. The spot they had come so far to seek was now before them. The live wires, just a few feet ahead of them, had been duly located, and now that the danger was known, it was not insuperable. It was an added mystery to them, nevertheless, how this wizard secured sufficient voltage to make these wires so deadly. They assumed, however, that powerful dynamos, worked by this same silent energy that propelled the aeroplane, were at work somewhere near this spot.

Dawn came at last; a faint yellow streak lit up the horizon away to the east. Then a crimson flush revealed the distant tree-tops, and the moon and stars faded away. A hundred songsters awoke the stillness of the forest, for another day had dawned, and the sable curtain of night rolled westward.

"See, there is a clearing fifty yards ahead," were Keane's first words to his companion.

"It is the aerodrome, the secret aerodrome!" replied Sharpe, peering through the trees.

"Let us work round a little way and find the workshop or hangar. I fancy we shall find it on the other side of the glade."

"Mind those beastly wires, then!" replied Sharpe, as he began to crawl through the dense undergrowth after his companion, who had already started to make a circuit of the outer defences on his hands and knees.

The next half-hour was spent in cautious creeping and crawling just outside those death-dealing wires. At the end of that time, however, Keane made a discovery. He had completed about half the circuit, when, peering carefully through the trees, he fancied he could make out the camouflaged fabric which covered some temporary building. So carefully was this place hidden amongst the trees that he had to look twice or three times before he could make up his mind that he was not mistaken. At last he convinced himself that he had located the workshop, else, why should the place have been so carefully hidden. Waiting for his companion to reach him, he pointed to the object and whispered, "There it is, not thirty yards away!"

"Shall we get over these wires, and rush the place?" asked Sharpe.

"No. Let us continue our journey until we have completed the circuit. We may make another discovery yet. Come along; fortune favours the brave."

They had scarcely crept another hundred yards, however, when a rustling in the leaves, accompanied by a snort, revealed the presence of another wild boar, which had evidently scented their presence.

"Confound the pig!" muttered Sharpe, who was afraid the sounds might lead to their premature discovery. But Keane thought otherwise, for, to his quick mind and instructive genius, this trifling event seemed providential.

"The pig!" he whispered, pointing to the spot whence came the occasional snorts of the angry, disturbed creature.

"What of it?" queried Sharpe.

"Let's get to the other side of the beast and drive it against the wires."

"And roast the brute alive for the benefit of their breakfast, I suppose."

Keane laughed silently, and wondered how far the conspirators used this live wire to keep themselves supplied with food. He knew, however, that a wild boar on the live wires would soon bring out the inmates of that mysterious house in the woods, and would sufficiently distract their attention to give the airmen their opportunity.

The next moment, having made a sufficiently extensive circuit, so as to get the wild boar between them and the wires, they began closing in on the beast, an operation not devoid of peril, should the boar decide to attack them. Fortune favoured them, however. The angry beast, noting the approach of some unseen enemy, by the movements of the tangled undergrowth, half frightened and half infuriated, made off in the direction of the clearing, uttering further snorts. The next moment he had touched the first of those deadly wires, and, with a wild scream which rang through the forest, he leapt into the air, then fell back quivering but dead across that fatal grill.

"Back–back for your life!" hissed Keane, as he made haste back to the spot where they had sheltered, close to the camouflaged hangar.

The next instant the watchers saw the professor and his assistant rush out of the little building, towards the place where the animal lay right across the first four wires. In their excitement they both seemed to have forgotten the presence of the two Englishmen in the woods during the previous evening, for they were both unarmed. Or perhaps it was that they imagined them to be the present victims of their cunning.

"Hoch! Another royal boar for the larder, Fritz!" exclaimed the professor. "We shall have the winter's supply complete very soon."

"Gut, mein herr!" came the answer.

"Better go back and switch off the current, so that we can take it away," urged the chief, and, staying but a second to see the royal victim, the assistant complied.

This was what the two Englishmen had been waiting for. The moment of action had come at last. Gripping their pistols, they made ready to advance and take possession of the hangar during the absence of the inmates.

"Sind Sie fertig, Friedrich?" called the professor.

"Ja, das bin ich!" replied the other, as he left the workshop, and rejoined his companion.

"Come along, the wires are dead now," whispered Keane, and, keeping well within the shadows of the trees, the two men crept forward, gained the rear of the structure, then cautiously worked their way round and entered the hangar unobserved.

One glance about the well-fitted workshop sufficed. There were no further occupants, and they lowered their pistols. Sharpe at once sprang to the lever which regulated the powerful electrical current and clutched it. In another instant the two men without would have paid the extreme penalty, for they would have been instantly killed by their own evil device, but Keane stopped him:–

"Don't!" he said. "We have much to learn. The professor at least must be taken alive, if possible. The secret he holds is too precious to be lost. Let us hide!"

"Where can we hide?" asked the other, somewhat disappointed, and amazed at the further risks which his companion appeared willing to take in order to gratify an insatiable curiosity. "The tables may be quickly turned upon us."

"We can shoot them as a last resort, if that is necessary," urged Keane, who knew the priceless value of the secrets which this place contained.

"Hist! They are coming."

"This way!" whispered Keane, and he drew his companion into a little recess, which had evidently been curtained off for the mechanic's sleeping berth.

They had barely withdrawn themselves into this narrow apartment when the two men entered, dragging the carcase of the wild boar with them.

"Leave it there for a moment, Strauss. The message from the Rittmeister is due. I must also send him that other message again, as the first has not been acknowledged," were the professor's first words.

"Yes, sir. Shall I start the dynamos again?" asked the assistant.

"Perhaps you'd better, but first hand me that message book and the secret code."

The next moment the professor was busy at the wireless keys, transmitting some message to the far deserts of Arabia.

"By all the saints," gasped Keane, "he's sending a message to the raider, the Scorpion, as he calls it. I must have that secret code at all hazards. I wonder what he is saying?"

For some time the chief conspirator was engaged coding and decoding messages at the little table where the aerials, carefully hidden amongst the trees without, had their terminus. And in that moment Keane thanked his stars that he had waited for this, for he saw new possibilities opening out before him. Once in possession of this mechanism and the necessary codes, he could communicate at will with the distant raider, who was threatening the whole civilised world by his almost superhuman powers of brigandage. He could recall the raider also, and make his capture certain, once he could secure absolute possession of this little citadel.

For the present he could do nothing but wait, however, and see how matters developed. Once, the assistant came quite close to their hiding-place, and both men again gripped their Webleys. At this moment even to breathe seemed fraught with danger. If the man should enter the little apartment, he must die, and the professor must be immediately threatened with the same penalty unless he surrendered.

"Ha! So far so good!" gasped Keane, as the mechanic recrossed the workshop without actually entering their hiding-place.

"Teufel!" spluttered the professor. "Here is that fool Tempest trying to communicate with those two verdammt Englishmen who are still roaming about in the Schwarzwald. He little knows that we possess his secret code."

"Himmel! What does he say?" asked the other.