CHAPTER IX
EASTWARD HO!
Not all the stern discipline that had been enforced by theMaster--discipline already like a second nature to this band ofadventurous men--could quite prevent a little confusion on board theEagle of the Sky.
As the huge machine crashed, plunged, staggered, then righted herselfand soared aloft, shouts echoed down the corridors, shots crackledfrom the lower gallery and from a few open ports.
At sound of them, and of faint, far cries from the Palisades, witha futile spatter of pistol-and rifle-fire, the Master frowned. Thisintrusion of disorder lay quite outside his plans. He had hoped for aswift and quiet getaway. Complications had been introduced. Under hisbreath he muttered something as he manipulated the controls.
The major, laughing a bit wildly, leaned from the shattered window andlet drive a few last pot-shots into the dark, at the faint flickerof lights along the crest of the black cliff. In the gloom of thepilot-house, his shoulders bulked huge as he fired. Captain Alden,staggering back, sat down heavily on one of the sofa-lockers.
One or two faint shots still popped, along the cliff, with littlepin-pricks of fire in the dark. Then all sounds of oppositionvanished. The _Nissr_, upborne at her wonderful climbing-angle towardthe clouds painted by her searchlight--clouds like a rippled, moonlitveil through which peeped faint stars--spiraled above the Hudson andin a vast arc turned her beak into the south.
Disorder died. Silence fell, save for the whistling of the sudden windof the airship's own motion, and for the steadily mounting drone ofthe huge propellers.
"Made it all right, by God!" exclaimed Bohannan, excitedly. "Nodamage, either. If the floats had smashed when they hit the gate,there'd have been a devil of an explosion--vacuum collapsing, youknow. Close call, but we made it! Now, if--"
"That will do!" the Master curtly interrupted, with steadfast eyespeering out through the conning windows. Now that the first _elan_ ofexcitement had spent itself, this strange man had once more resumedhis mantle of calm. Upborne on the wings of wondrous power, wingsall aquiver with their first stupendous leap into the night-sky,the Master--impassive, watchful, cool--seemed as if seated in hiseasy-chair at _Niss'rosh_.
"That will do, Major!" he repeated. "None of your extravagance, sir!No time now for rodomontade!" He glanced swiftly round, saw CaptainAlden by the dim aura of light reflected from the instrument-board.Blood reddened the captain's left sleeve.
"Wounded, Captain?"
"Only a scratch!"
"Report to Dr. Lombardo. And have Simonds, in charge of the stores,replace this broken pane."
"Yes, sir!"
Alden saluted with a blood-stained hand, slipped his gun back into itsholster and got up. He swayed a little, with the swinging slide of theair-liner and with the weakness that nerve-shock of a wound brings.But coolly enough he slid open the door leading into the maincorridor, and passed through, closing the door after him. Where hishand touched the metal, red stains showed. Neither man of the pair nowleft in the pilot-house made any comments. This was all in the day'swork--this and whatever else might befall.
Spiraling vastly, up, up climbed the giant plane. A colder air nippedthrough the broken window. Cloud-wisps began to blur the glass; thestars began to burn more whitely in a blacker sky.
The Master touched a button at the left side of the steering-post.Below his feet, as they rested in their metal stirrups, an aluminumplate silently slid back. An oblong of dim light blurred up throughthe heavy plate-glass sheet it had masked.
Glancing down, the Master saw far, far below him a slowly rotatingvagueness of waters black and burnished, of faintly twinkling lights.Lights and water drew backward, as the rotary motion gave way to asouthern course. The Master slowed the helicopters. A glance at thealtimeter showed him 1,965 feet. The compass in its binnacle gave himdirection.
"Pit number one!" he sharply exclaimed into the phone connectingtherewith.
"Yes, sir!" came back the observer's voice.
"Keep a sharp eye out for _Niss'rosh_! Remember, two red lightsshowing there!"
"Yes, sir. I'll report as soon as I pick them up."
The Master, knowing his course thither should be S.E. by S., drew theliner to that exact angle. Under his skilled touch at the wheel, thecompass needle steadied to the dot. The searchlight lanced its wayahead, into the vague drift of the smoke arising from New York.
"Sight it, yet?" demanded the Master, presently.
"Yes, sir. Just picked it up. Hold hard, sir!"
Almost at once, the Master also got a glimpse of two tiny pin-pricksof crimson, high in air above the city-mass. Swiftly _Nissr_ drewover the building. Far, very far down in the chasm of emptiness,tiny strings of light--infinitesimal luminous beads on invisiblethreads--marked Broadway, Fifth Avenue, countless other streets. Thetwo red winks drew almost underneath.
Down plunged the searchlight, picking _Niss'rosh_ out of the gloom.Through the floor-glass, the Master could descry it clearly. Heslowed, circled, playing with vacuum-lift, helicopters, engines, asif they had been keys of a familiar instrument. Presently the linerhovered, poised, sank, remained a little over 750 feet above theobservatory on the roof-top.
"Cracowicz!" ejaculated the Master, into the phone again, as his deftfingers made another connection. A foreign voice answered: "Yes, sir!"alertly.
"Ready in the lower gallery now, with the winch and tackles!" bade theMaster.
Again came: "Yes, sir!" from the man in charge of the three whoalready knew perfectly well what was expected of them. As _Nissr_slowly turned, a trap opened in the bottom of her lower gallery,almost directly between the two forward vacuum-floats, and down sped alittle landing nacelle or basket at the end of a fine steel cable.
Swiftly the electric winch dropped the nacelle, containing three men.It slowed, at their command, through the phone that led up the wire.With hardly a jar, the basket landed on the roof.
The men jumped out, made fast their tackles to Captain Alden's planethere, leaped in again and signaled: "Hoist away!"
With noiseless speed the winch gathered in the cable. Up swooped thenacelle. As it cleared the roof, _Nissr_ purred forward, slid away,gathered speed over the city where already the alarm had been given.
In four minutes the men had safely landed in the lower gallery oncemore, and the plane was being hoisted by davits and made fast on theupper platform, known as the take-off, which served as a runway forplanes leaving the ship or alighting thereon.
Over the light-spangled city the giant air-liner gathered way.Three or four searchlights had already begun trying to pick herup. Quiverings of radiance reached out for her, felt into the void,whirled like cosmic spokes. The Brooklyn Navy Yard whipped theupper air for her. Down on Sandy Hook, a slim spear of light stabbedquestingly through the night. Then all at once the monster light onGovernor's Island caught her, dazzling into the Master's eyes.
He only smiled, as he sheered eastward, dropped East River behind andunloosed the Sky-eagle's course above Brooklyn.
"Just a little fireworks, as a send-off, Major," said he, notching thespeed ahead, ever ahead, till a whipping gale began to beat in at thebroken pane. "They got word of it pretty quick, eh? I suppose they'llsend up a few planes after us."
"_After_ us, yes!" exulted the major. "Faith, they'll be after us, allright--a devil of a long way after!"
To this the Master gave no answer, but signaled Auchincloss in theengine-room for full speed. Now a subtle tremor possessed thevast fabric, mistress of the upper spaces and the night. Theclose-compacted lights beneath commenced to sprinkle out into tenuousdots. The tiny blazing fringe of Coney burned a moment very farbelow, then slid away, under the glass flooring. Still headingsharply upward, with altimeter needle steadily mounting, with the coldbecoming ever greater, the liner flung herself out boldly over the jetplain of ocean.
Right into the eye of heaven she seemed to point, into a vast andprofound blackness, that, as the Master snicked off the no-longerneeded searchlight, unleashed my
riad stars--stars which leaped out ofthe velvet night. Already man and the works of man lay far behind. Ifthere had been any tentative pursuit, the Legionaries knew nothing ofit. Outdistancing pursuit as an eagle distances sparrows, the linergloried in her swift trajectory.
The Master nodded, well pleased. Bohannan laughed like a boy, andholstered his gun. He moved over to the starboard window, out of thegale. With mocking eyes he watched the futile searchlight at the Hook.
"They've got as much chance of overhauling us as the proverbialcelluloid cat has of catching the asbestos rat," said he. "A cleangetaway, barring the little damage we've taken--this window, andAlden, and--"
"Better unpack your kit, and settle down," the Master drylyinterrupted him. "Take a look around and see that everything'sshipshape. Be sure the port and starboard watches are chosen.Everything's been arranged, already, but in dealing with humanbeings there's bound to be a little confusion. They aren'tautomata--unfortunately. And, Major!"
"Yes, sir?" answered Bohannan, who despite his familiarity with theMaster was now constrained to formality. Resentment sounded in hisvoice.
"Send Brodeur to relieve me, in about ten minutes."
"Yes, sir," repeated the Celt. For a moment, standing there in thegloom of the pilot-house, he eyed the dim, watchful figure at thewheel. Then he turned, slid the door, and disappeared.
As he walked aft, past the aluminum ladder that led to the uppergalleries, he muttered with dudgeon:
"He rates us two for a nickel, that's plain enough--plain as paint!Well, all right. I'll stand for it; but there may be others that--"
He left the words unfinished, and went to do the Master's bidding.
Alone, the Master smiled. Wine of victory pulsed in his blood andbrain. Power lay under his hand, that closed with joy upon it. Powernot only over this hardy Legion, but power in perspective over--
"God, if I can do it!" he whispered, and fell silent. His eyes restedon the instruments before him, their white dials glowing under thelittle penthouses of their metal shields. Altitude now showed 2,437feet, and still rising. Tachometers gave from 2,750 to 2,875 r.p.m.for the various propellers. Speed had gone above 190 miles per hour.No sign of man remained, save, very far below through a rift in thepale, moonlit waft of cloud, a tiny light against a coal-black plainof sea--the light of a slow, crawling steamer--a light which almost atonce dropped far behind.
Vast empty spaces on all hands, above, below, engulfed _Nissr_. TheMaster felt himself alone with air and sky, with power, with throbbingdreams and visions.
"If it can be done!" he repeated. "But--there's no 'if' to it, atall. It _can_ be! It _shall_! The biggest thing ever attempted in thisworld! A dream that's never been dreamed, before! And if it can't,well, a dream like that is far more than worth dying for. A dream thatcan come true--by God, that shall come true!"
His hands tightened on the wheel. You would have said he was trying toinfuse some of his own overflowing strength into the mechanism that,whirling, zooning with power, needed no more. The gleam in his eyes,there in the dark pilot-house, seemed almost that of a fanatic. Hisjaw hardened, his nostrils expanded.
This strange man's face was now wholly other than it had been only aweek before, drawn and lined by ennui. Now vast ambitions dominatedand infused it with virile force.
As he held the speeding air-liner to her predetermined course throughvoids of night and mystery, he peered with burning eagerness at thebeckoning stars along the world's far, eastern rim.
"Behold now, Allah!" he cried suddenly. "_Labbayk_![1] I come!"
[Footnote 1: _Labbayk_ (I am here) is the cry of all Mohammedanpilgrims as they approach the holy city of Mecca.]
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