The Phantom Airman

"What do you mean?"

"I mean this–we're not out of the wood yet."

"I agree; we're in the very centre of it," replied Keane.

"Yet you did not inflict the coup de grâceon the diabolical vipers, and they will shortly awake. Moreover, the Scorpion may arrive unexpectedly, and we shall be unprepared for her."

"What would you do?"

"Bring over the machines from Mulhausen, ready to fight this air fiend when he comes."

"Ho! So you're longing for another real air fight, are you, like the 'scraps' we used to have with the Richthofen 'circus'?"

"At any rate, we'd better prepare. Then I'd bind those two criminals hand and foot or surround them with live wires, so that, should they awake unexpectedly, they would not dare to stir."

"There is certainly something in what you suggest about bringing the aeroplanes over, though we should have a deuce of a job to land them in this place; they're by no means possessed of the powers of a helicopter. However, I'll get into touch with Colonel Tempest and ask for immediate assistance, and also ask him to bring over Professor Verne to investigate these mysterious engineering and chemical appliances."

So, leaving the workshop, the live wires and the prisoners to the care of Sharpe, the senior airman devoted all the rest of that morning to investigating the wireless apparatus, examining the secret codes, and trying to get into touch with the Commissioner of Aerial Police. In this, however, he was not very successful, for the air was full of messages, concerning an overdue air-liner which had been expected for some time at Cairo. Perhaps his message had been jammed or lost in the aerial jostle.

Colonel Tempest was almost at his wits' end. He sorely needed the help of his able assistants. He wanted to send them out east to chase this daring brigand off the trade routes.

He was unable also to comply with the request for assistance, when at length it did reach him, for all his best fighting men, with the exception of these two in the Black Forest, had been sent after the raider. He promised, however, to come personally at the earliest possible moment, as soon as matters had been cleared up a little.

Again and again Keane tried to reach him with brief, but urgent coded messages, for he was now getting extremely anxious lest the raider should appear before they were ready. Sharpe, however, who was eminently practical, had taken the professor's own tip, and had laid wires across the glade, which, when properly connected up, would make it a dangerous proceeding for a hostile aeroplane to land there, while, in the event of a friendly one appearing, the current could be immediately switched off. He had seen to the prisoners as well, for, unknown to Keane, he had, on the first signs of awakening, given to each of them a sufficiently strong soporific to extend the period of their quiescence for a considerably longer period, so that, late that afternoon, his friend was somewhat alarmed at their quietude.

That night they watched in turns, and relieved each other every two hours. When morning came they climbed the highest trees and scanned the horizon in every direction for the promised help, and also for the Scorpion. But although the column of smoke from the fire which had been lighted, ascended all day in one long grey streak to guide the British airmen, yet morning wore on to afternoon, and no assistance came.

Keane sent message after message, but apparently to no purpose. The very heavens were full of messages, for the whole civilized world had been roused by the last daring feat of the phantom airman. London, Paris, Cairo, Delhi and New York were clamouring for his immediate capture and execution. Strong things, too, were being said about the incapacity of the much vaunted aerial police, but all the world realised that the task before these men was almost superhuman.

Twice an urgent message came recalling the two Englishmen, but Keane replied with the one word, "Impossible!"

And all this time the raider, who was carefully hiding for a few days, delighted his companions by retailing with much gusto such of these messages as he had been able to piece together from the aerial jumble.

"Let them send all their available machines and pilots out east," he had said to Carl and Max, "then we will quietly slip across Europe to Ireland, where everything is ripe for the promised revolution."

"And the Schwarzwald?" queried Max.

"Oh, we will call there for a few hours en route," replied the pirate, calmly relighting his pipe, "The professor will understand our silence and inactivity."

So the third morning came, and Keane, whose anxiety regarding the still sleeping prisoners had been allayed by Sharpe, who smilingly confessed what he had done, now became fearfully uneasy as to the condition of affairs.

"For heaven's sake light that beacon again!" he ordered. "If assistance does not arrive to-day, all these secrets I have endeavoured to rescue will be lost."

"What will you do?" asked his companion, who was already applying a match to the pile of dried tinder and sticks.

"Blow the whole place up," he replied.

"And shoot the prisoners?" ventured his friend, slyly.

"No."

"What then?"

"Rouse them up, somehow, handcuff them together and take them away."

"Some job that," remarked Sharpe, looking up at the long thin trail of smoke, for there was still an absence of wind currents.

Even as he gazed into the sky, however, he caught sight of a tiny speck hovering at twelve thousand feet, and he almost shouted, "Aeroplane!"

"Where?" asked his startled comrade, whose nerves had undergone some strain during the past few days.

"Right up in the blue. There, can you see her?"

"Yes, I have her now, but she's very high. Can it be the Scorpion, do you think?" asked the senior.

"Cannot say yet. I'll fetch the glasses."

"Run for them, quickly! I cannot hear her engines at all. It must be the brigand."

"Ah, there, I hear the engines now, very faintly, though. Rolls-Royce engines too, thank God!" exclaimed Keane fervently, as he recognised the well-known sound, and knew that assistance had arrived at last, in the shape of at least one Bristol Fighter.

"It's all right, Sharpe. Cut off that beastly current. Tempest will be here in a minute."

"Are you sure it's Tempest?"

"Yes. Listen to that! Now he's cut his engine out again, and he's coming down. It's the chief right enough; I should know his flying amongst a score of aeroplanes."

The wires were cut off, a temporary landing-tee quickly rigged up on the ground, and frantic signals were made to the pilot, who was now rapidly coming down in sharp spirals.

A few minutes later the intrepid pilot flattened out above the tree tops, dipped again, banked steeply, and sideslipped almost to the ground, in order to get into the confined and narrow space which served the Scorpion for an aerodrome. Scarcely had he landed when another machine, which had followed him from England, performed the same highly-skilled manoeuvre, and taxied up to the little group.

CHAPTER XXI

THE COMING FIGHT

"Good-morning, Colonel!" cried the two airmen, saluting their chief smartly, as he still sat in the aeroplane, looking not a little crabbed and sour, as he secretly swore at the infamous stretch of ground misnamed an aerodrome; then turned his gaze upon the two airmen who had appealed for assistance.

"Morning! So this is where you young cubs spend your holidays, while the whole world is ramping at me for not catching this infernal brigand. What have you got to say for yourselves?"

Keane was not at all put out by this dour greeting; he knew his chief too well, and admired him accordingly. Merit is not always accompanied by a bland and urbane countenance, neither do brains always accompany a white shirt front.

"I have that to say which will almost make you jump out of your skin, sir," replied Keane, "but we must somehow get these aeroplanes under cover, or properly camouflaged, for the Scorpion may arrive any minute."

"Eh? What's that you say, boy?" exclaimed Tempest, leaping from the fuselage. "The Scorpion?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why, that is the name of your infernal raider, isn't it, Captain Watson?" and here the colonel turned and addressed his passenger, who was none other than the skipper of the air-liner which had been so roughly handled in the Hamadian Desert.