TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
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Victor Appleton >> TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
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"Hurray!" cried Ned. "That's the ticket! Now we'll soon show
these fellows what's what!"
"Go easy!" cautioned Tom. "We must work carefully. It won't do
to slam around and try to break down the door with these. I think
we had better select a place on the side wall, break through
that, and make an opening where we can come out unnoticed. Then,
when we are ready, we can take them by surprise. We'll have to do
something like that, for they outnumber us, you know."
"That is so," agreed Captain Warner. "We must use strategy."
"Well, where would be a good place to begin to burrow out?"
asked Ned.
"Here," said Tom, indicating a place far back in the room. "We
can work there in turns, sawing a hole through the wall. It will
bring us out in the passage between the aft and amidship cabins,
and we can go either way."
"Then let's begin!" cried Ned enthusiastically, and they set to
work.
While the aerial warship pitched and tossed in the storm, over
some part of the Atlantic, Tom and his friends took turns in
working their way to freedom. With the sharp end of the file a
small hole was made, the work being done as slowly as a rat
gnaws, so as to make no noise that would be heard by their
captors. In time the hole was large enough to admit the end of
the saw.
But this took many hours, and it was not until the second day
of their captivity that they had the hole nearly large enough for
the passage of one person at a time. They had not been
discovered, they thought.
Meanwhile they had been given food and water at intervals, but
to all demands that they be released, or at least told why they
were held prisoners, a deaf ear was turned.
They could only guess at the fate of Koku. Probably the giant
was kept bound, for once he got the chance to use his enormous
strength it might go hard with the foreigners.
The Mars continued to fly through the air. Sometimes, as Tom
and his friends could tell by the motion, she was almost
stationary in the upper regions, and again she seemed to be
flying at top speed. Occasionally there came the sound of firing.
"They're trying my guns," observed Tom grimly.
"Do you suppose they are being attacked?" asked Ned, hopefully.
"Hardly," replied Captain Warner. "The United States possesses
no craft able to cope with this one in aerial warfare, and they
are hardly engaging in part of the European war yet. I think they
are just trying Tom's new guns."
Later our friends learned that such was the case.
The storm had either passed, or the Mars had run out of the
path of it, for, after the first few hours of pitching and
tossing, the atmosphere seemed reduced to a state of calm.
All the while they were secretly working to gain their freedom
so they might attack and overpower their enemies, they took
occasional observations from the small window. But they could
learn nothing of their whereabouts. They could only view the
heaving ocean, far below them, or see a mass of cloud-mist, which
hid the earth, if so be that the Mars was sailing over land.
"But how much longer can they keep it up?" asked Ned.
"Well, we have fuel and supplies aboard for nearly two weeks,"
Tom answered.
"And by the end of that time we may all be dead," spoke the
young bank clerk despondently.
"No, we'll be out of here before then!" declared Lieutenant
Marbury.
Indeed the hole was now almost large enough to enable them to
crawl out one at a time. They could not, of course, see how it
looked from the outside, but Tom had selected a place for its
cutting so that the sawdust and the mark of the panel that was
being removed, would not ordinarily be noticeable.
Their set night as the time for making the attempt--late at
night, when it was hoped that most of their captors would be
asleep.
Finally the last cut was made, and a piece of wood hung over
the opening only by a shred, all ready to knock out.
"We'll do it at midnight," announced Tom.
Anxious, indeed, were those last hours of waiting. The time had
almost arrived for the attempt, when Tom, who had been nervously
pacing to and fro, remarked:
"We must be running into another storm. Feel how she heaves and
rolls!"
Indeed the Mars was most unsteady.
"It sure is a storm!" cried Ned, "and a heavy one, too," for
there came a burst of thunder, that seemed like a report of Tom's
giant cannon.
In another instant they were in the midst of a violent
thunderstorm, the airship pitching and tossing in a manner to
almost throw them from their feet.
As Tom reached up to switch on the electric light again, there
came a flash of lightning that well nigh blinded them. And so
close after it as to seem simultaneous, there came such a crash
of thunder as to stun them all. There was a tingling, as of a
thousand pins and needles in the body of each of the captives,
and a strong smell of sulphur. Then, as the echoes of the clap
died away, Tom yelled:
"She's been struck! The airship has been struck!"
CHAPTER XXV
FREEDOM
For a moment there was silence, following Tom's wild cry and
the noise of the thunderclap. Then, as other, though less loud
reverberations of the storm continued to sound, the captives
awoke to a realization of what had happened. They had been
partially stunned, and were almost as in a dream.
"Are--are we all right?" stammered Ned.
"Bless my soul! What has happened?" cried Mr. Damon.
"We've been struck by lightning!" Tom repeated. "I don't know
whether we're all right or not."
"We seem to be falling!" exclaimed Lieutenant Marbury.
"If the whole gas bag isn't ripped to pieces we're lucky,"
commented Jerry Mound.
Indeed, it was evident that the Mars was sinking rapidly. To
all there came the sensation of riding in an elevator in a
skyscraper and being dropped a score of stories.
Then, as they stood there in the darkness, illuminated only by
flashes from the lightning outside the window, waiting for an
unknown fate, Tom Swift uttered a cry of delight.
"We've stopped falling!" he cried. "The automatic gas machine
is pumping. Part of the gas bag was punctured, but the unbroken
compartments hold!"
"If part of the gas leaked out I don't see why it wasn't all
set on fire and exploded," observed Captain Warner.
"It's a non-burnable gas," Tom quickly explained. "But come on.
This may be our very chance. There seems to be something going on
that may be in our favor."
Indeed the captives could hear confused cries and the running
to and fro of many feet.
He made for the sawed panel, and, in another instant, had burst
out and was through it, out into the passageway between the after
and amidship cabins. His companions followed him.
They looked into the rear cabin, or motor compartment, and a
scene of confusion met their gaze. Two of the foreign men who had
seized the ship lay stretched out on the floor near the humming
machinery, which had been left to run itself. A look in the other
direction, toward the main cabin, showed a group of the foreign
spies bending over the inert body of La Foy, the Frenchman,
stretched out on a couch.
"What has happened?" cried Ned. "What does it all mean?'
"The lightning!" exclaimed Tom. "The bolt that struck the ship
has knocked out some of our enemies! Now is the time to attack
them!"
The Mars seemed to have passed completely through a narrow
storm belt. She was now in a quiet atmosphere, though behind her
could be seen the fitful play of lightning, and there could be
heard the distant rumble of thunder.
"Come on!" cried Tom. "We must act quickly, while they are
demoralized! Come on!"
His friends needed no further urging. Jerry Mound and the
machinist rushed to the engine-room, to look after any of the
enemy that might be there, while Tom, Ned and the others ran into
the middle cabin.
"Grab 'em! Tie 'em up!" cried Tom, for they had no weapons with
which to make an attack.
But none were needed. So stunned were the foreigners by the
lightning bolt, which had miraculously passed our friends, and so
unnerved by the striking down of La Foy, their leader, that they
seemed like men half asleep. Before they could offer any
resistance they were bound with the same ropes that had held our
friends in bondage. That is, all but the big Frenchman himself.
He seemed beyond the need of binding.
Mound, the engineer, and his assistant, came hurrying in from
the motor-room, followed by Koku.
"We found him chained up," Jerry explained, as the big giant,
freed from his captivity, rubbed his chafed wrists.
"Are there any of the foreigners back there?'
"Only those two knocked out by the lightning," the engineer
explained. "We've made them secure. I see you've got things here
in shape."
"Yes," replied Tom. "And now to see where we are, and to get
back home. Whew! But this has been a time! Koku, what happened to
you?"
"They no let anything happen. I be in chains all the while,"
the giant answered. "Jump on me before I can do anything!"
"Well, you're out, now, and I think we'll have you stand guard
over these men. The tables are turned, Koku."
The bound ones were carried to the same prison whence our
friends had escaped, but their bonds were not taken off, and Koku
was put in the place with them. By this time La Foy and the two
other stricken men showed signs of returning life. They had only
been stunned.
The young inventor and his friends, once more in possession of
their airship, lost little time in planning to return. They
found that the spies were all expert aeronauts, and had kept a
careful chart of their location. They were then halfway across
the Atlantic, and in a short time longer would probably have been
in some foreign country. But Tom turned the Mars about.
The craft had only been slightly damaged by the lightning bolt,
though three of the gas bag compartments were torn, The others
sufficed, however, to make the ship sufficiently buoyant.
When morning came Tom and his friends had matters running
almost as smoothly as before their capture.
The prisoners had no chance to escape, and, indeed, they seemed
to have been broken in spirit. La Foy was no longer the insolent,
mocking Frenchman that he had been, and the two chief foreign
engineers seemed to have lost some of their reason when the
lightning struck them.
"But it was a mighty lucky and narrow escape for us," said Ned,
as he and Tom sat in the pilot-house the second day of the return
trip.
"That's right," agreed his chum.
Once again they were above the earth, and, desiring to get rid
as soon as possible of the presence of the spies, a landing was
made near New York City, and the government authorities
communicated with. Captain Warner and Lieutenant Marbury took
charge of the prisoners, with some Secret Service men, and the
foreigners were soon safely locked up.
"And now what are you going to do, Tom?" asked Ned, when, once
more, they had the airship to themselves.
"I'm going back to Shopton, fix up the gas bag, and give her
another government trial," was the answer.
And, in due time, this was done. Tom added some improvements
to the aircraft, making it better than ever, and when she was
given the test required by the government, she was an unqualified
success, and the rights to the Mars were purchased for a large
sum. In sailing, and in the matter of guns and bombs, Tom's craft
answered every test.
"So you see I was right, after all, Dad," the young inventor
said, when informed that he had succeeded. "We can shoot off even
bigger guns than I thought from the deck of the Mars."
"Yes, Tom," replied the aged inventor, "I admit I was wrong."
Tom's aerial warship was even a bigger success than he had
dared to hope. Once the government men fully understood how to
run it, in which Tom played a prominent part in giving
instructions, they put the Mars to a severe test. She was taken
out over the ocean, and her guns trained on an obsolete
battleship. Her bombs and projectiles blew the craft to pieces.
"The Mars will be the naval terror of the seas in any future
war," predicted Captain Warner.
The Secret Service men succeeded in unearthing all the details
of the plot against Tom. His life, at times, had been in danger,
but at the last minute the man detailed to harm him lost his
nerve.
It was Tom's enemies who had set on fire the red shed, and who
later tried to destroy the ship by putting a corrosive acid in
one of the propellers. That plot, though, was not wholly
successful. Then came the time when one of the spies hid on
board, and dropped the copper bar on the motor, short-circuiting
it. But for the storage-battery that scheme might have wrought
fearful damage. The spy who had stowed himself away on the craft
escaped at night by the connivance of one of Tom's corrupt
employees.
The foreign spies were tried and found guilty, receiving
merited punishment. Of course the governments to which they
belonged disclaimed any part in the seizure of Tom's aerial
warship.
It came out at the trial that one of Tom's most trusted
employees had proved a traitor, and had the night before the
test, allowed the foreign spies to secrete themselves on board,
to rush out at an opportune time to overpower our hero and his
friends. But luck was with Tom at the end.
"Well, what are you going to tackle next, Tom?" asked Ned, one
day about a month after these exciting experiences.
"I don't know," was the slow answer. "I think a self-swinging
hammock, under an apple tree, with a never-emptying pitcher of
ice-cold lemonade would be about the thing."
"Good, Tom! And, if you'll invent that, I'll share it with
you."
"Well, come on, let's begin now," laughed Tom. "I need a
vacation, anyhow."
But it is very much to be doubted if Tom Swift, even on a
vacation, could refrain from trying to invent something, either
in the line of airships, water, or land craft. And so, until he
again comes to the front with something flew, we will take leave
of him.
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