The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “I don’t think we’d better do it,” said Tom.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, the wind is getting stronger every minute and it will be against us on the way back. If we descend, and try to make another ascension we may fail. We’re up in the air now, and it may be easy to turn around and go back. Then, again, it may not, but it certainly will be easier to shift around up here than down on the ground. So I’d rather not descend—that is, not entirely to the ground.”

  “Well, just as you say, though I wanted my friend to know I could build a successful airship.”

  “Oh, we can get around that. I’ll take her down as low as is safe, and fly over his house, if you’ll point it out, and you can drop him a message in one of the pasteboard tubes we carry for that purpose.”

  “That’s a good idea,” assented Mr. Fenwick. “I’ll do it.”

  Tom sent the Whizzer down until the hotels and cottages could be made out quite plainly. After looking with a pair of opera glasses, Mr. Fenwick picked out the residence of his friend, and Tom prepared to circle about the roof.

  By this time the presence of the airship had become known to hundreds, and crowds were eagerly watching it.

  “There he is! There’s my friend who didn’t believe I would ever succeed!” exclaimed Mr. Fenwick, pointing to a man who stood in the street in front of a large, white house. “I’ll drop him a message!”

  One was in readiness in a weighted pasteboard cylinder, and soon it was falling downward. The airship was moving slowly, as it was beating against the wind.

  Leaning out of the cabin window, Mr. Fenwick shouted to his friend:

  “Hey, Will! I thought you said my airship would never go! I’ll come and give you a ride, some day!”

  Whether the gentleman understood what Mr. Fenwick shouted at him is doubtful, but he saw the inventor waving his hand, and he saw the falling cylinder, and a look of astonishment spread over his face, as he ran to pick up the message.

  “We’re going up now, and will try to head for home,” said Tom, a moment later, as he shifted the rudder.

  “Bless my storage battery!” cried Mr. Damon. “But we have had a fine trip.”

  “A much better one than we’ll have going back,” observed Tom, in a low voice.

  “Why; what’s the matter?” asked the eccentric man.

  “The wind has increased to a gale, and will be dead against us,” answered Tom.

  Mr. Fenwick was busy writing another message to drop, and he paid little attention to the young inventor. Tom sent the craft well up into the air, and then tried to turn it about, and head back for Philadelphia. No sooner had he done so than the airship was met by the full force of the wind, which was now almost a hurricane. It had steadily increased, but, as long as they were moving with it, they did not notice it so much. Once they attempted to stem its fury they found themselves almost helpless.

  Tom quickly realized this, and, giving up his intention of beating up against the wind, he turned the craft around, and let it fly before the gale, the propellers aiding to get up a speed of seventy miles an hour.

  Mr. Fenwick, who had dropped the last of his messages, came from his small private cabin, to where Mr. Damon and Tom were in a low-voiced conversation near the engines. The owner of the Whizzer, happened to look down through a plate-glass window in the floor of car. What he saw caused him to give a gasp of astonishment.

  “Why—why!” he exclaimed. “We—we’re over the ocean.”

  “Yes,” answered Tom, quietly, as he gazed down on the tumbling billows below them. They had quickly passed over Cape May, across the sandy beach, and were now well out over the Atlantic.

  “Why—why are we out here?” asked Mr. Fenwick. “Isn’t it dangerous—in an airship that hasn’t been thoroughly tried yet?”

  “Dangerous? Yes, somewhat,” replied Tom, slowly. “But we can’t help ourselves, Mr. Fenwick. We can’t turn around and go back in this gale, and we can’t descend.”

  “Then what’s to be done?”

  “Nothing, except to keep on until the gale blows itself out.”

  “And how long will that be?”

  “I don’t know—a week, maybe.”

  “Bless my coffee pot, I’m glad we’ve got plenty on board to eat!” exclaimed Mr. Damon.

  CHAPTER XI

  A Night Of Terror

  After the first shock of Tom’s announcement, the two men, who were traveling with him in the airship, showed no signs of fear. Yet it was alarming to know that one was speeding over the mighty ocean, before a terrific gale, with nothing more substantial under one that a comparatively frail airship.

  Still Mr. Damon knew Tom of old, and had confidence in his ability, and, while Mr. Fenwick was not so well acquainted with our hero, he had heard much about him, and put faith in his skill to carry them out of their present difficulty.

  “Are you sure you can’t turn around and go back?” asked Mr. Fenwick. His knowledge of air-currents was rather limited.

  “It is out of the question,” replied Tom, simply. “We would surely rip this craft to pieces if we attempted to buffet this storm.”

  “Is it so bad, then?” asked Mr. Damon, forgetting to bless anything in the tense excitement of the moment.

  “It might be worse,” was the reply of the young inventor. “The wind is blowing about eighty miles an hour at times, and to try to turn now would mean that we would tear the planes loose from the ship. True, we could still keep up by means of the gas bag, but even that might be injured. Going as we are, in the same direction as that in which the wind is blowing, we do not feel the full effect of it.”

  “But, perhaps, if we went lower down, or higher up, we could get in a different current of air,” suggested Mr. Fenwick, who had made some study of aeronautics.

  “I’ll try,” assented Tom, simply. He shifted the elevating rudder, and the Whizzer began to go up, slowly, for there was great lateral pressure on her large surface. But Tom knew his business, and urged the craft steadily. The powerful electric engines, which were the invention of Mr. Fenwick, stood them in good stead, and the barograph soon showed that they were steadily mounting.

  “Is the wind pressure any less?” inquired Mr. Damon, anxiously.

  “On the contrary, it seems to be increasing,” replied Tom, with a glance at the anemometer. “It’s nearly ninety miles an hour now.”

  “Then, aided by the propellers, we must be making over a hundred miles an hour.” said the inventor.

  “We are—a hundred and thirty,” assented Tom.

  “We’ll be blown across the ocean at this rate,” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “Bless my soul! I didn’t count on that.”

  “Perhaps we had better go down,” suggested Mr. Fenwick. “I don’t believe we can get above the gale.”

  “I’m afraid not,” came from Tom. “It may be a bit better down below.”

  Accordingly, the rudder was changed, and the Whizzer pointed her nose downward. None of the lifting gas was let out, as it was desired to save that for emergencies.

  Down, down, down, went the great airship, until the adventurers within, by gazing through the plate glass window in the floor of the cabin, could see the heaving, white-capped billows, tossing and tumbling below them.

  “Look out, or we’ll be into them!” shouted Mr. Damon.

  “I guess we may as well go back to the level where we were,” declared Tom. “The wind, both above and below that particular strata is stronger, and we will be safer up above. Our only chance is to scud before it, until it has blown itself out. And I hope it will be soon.”

  “Why?” asked Mr. Damon, in a low voice.

  “Because we may be blown so far that we can not get back while our power holds out, and then—” Tom did not finish, but Mr. Damon knew what he meant—death in the tossing ocean, far from land, when the Whizzer, unable to float in the air any longer, should drop into the storm-enraged Atlantic.

  They were again on a level, where the gale blew less fu
riously than either above or below, but this was not much relief. It seemed as if the airship would go to pieces, so much was it swayed and tossed about. But Mr. Fenwick, if he had done nothing else, had made a staunch craft, which stood the travelers in good stead.

  All the rest of that day they swept on, at about the same speed. There was nothing for them to do, save watch the machinery, occasionally replenishing the oil tanks, or making minor adjustments.

  “Well,” finally remarked Mr. Damon, when the afternoon was waning away, “if there’s nothing else to do, suppose we eat. Bless my appetite, but I’m hungry! and I believe you said, Mr. Fenwick, that you had plenty of food aboard.”

  “So we have, but the excitement of being blown out to sea on our first real trip, made me forget all about it. I’ll get dinner at once, if you can put up with an amateur’s cooking.”

  “And I’ll help,” offered Mr. Damon. “Tom can attend to the airship, and we’ll serve the meals. It will take our minds off our troubles.”

  There was a well equipped kitchen aboard the Whizzer and soon savory odors were coming from it. In spite of the terror of their situation, and it was not to be denied that they were in peril, they all made a good meal, though it was difficult to drink coffee and other liquids, owing to the sudden lurches which the airship gave from time to time as the gale tossed her to and fro.

  Night came, and, as the blackness settled down, the gale seemed to increase in fury. It howled through the slender wire rigging of the Whizzer, and sent the craft careening from side to side, and sometimes thrust her down into a cavern of the air, only to lift her high again, almost like a ship on the heaving ocean below them.

  As darkness settled in blacker and blacker, Tom had a glimpse below him, of tossing lights on the water.

  “We just passed over some vessel,” he announced. “I hope they are in no worse plight than we are.” Then, there suddenly came to him a thought of the parents of Mary Nestor, who were somewhere on the ocean, in the yacht Resolute bound for the West Indies.

  “I wonder if they’re out in this storm, too?” mused Tom. “If they are, unless the vessel is a staunch one, they may be in danger.”

  The thought of the parents of the girl he cared so much for being in peril, was not reassuring to Tom, and he began to busy himself about the machinery of the airship, to take his mind from the presentiment that something might happen to the Resolute.

  “We’ll have our own troubles before morning,” the lad mused, “if this wind doesn’t die down.”

  There was no indication that this was going to be the case, for the gale increased rather than diminished. Tom looked at their speed gage. They were making a good ninety miles an hour, for it had been decided that it was best to keep the engine and propellers going, as they steadied the ship.

  “Ninety miles an hour,” murmured Tom. “And we’ve been going at that rate for ten hours now. That’s nearly a thousand miles. We are quite a distance out to sea.”

  He looked at a compass, and noted that, instead of being headed directly across the Atlantic they were bearing in a southerly direction.

  “At this rate, we won’t come far from getting to the West Indies ourselves,” reasoned the young inventor. “But I think the gale will die away before morning.”

  The storm did not, however. More fiercely it blew through the hours of darkness. It was a night of terror, for they dared not go to sleep, not knowing at what moment the ship might turn turtle, or even rend apart, and plunge with them into the depths of the sea.

  So they sat up, occasionally attending to the machinery, and noting the various gages. Mr. Damon made hot coffee, which they drank from time to time, and it served to refresh them.

  There came a sudden burst of fury from the storm, and the airship rocked as if she was going over.

  “Bless my heart!” cried Mr. Damon, springing up. “That was a close call!”

  Tom said nothing. Mr. Fenwick looked pale and alarmed.

  The hours passed. They were swept ever onward, at about the same speed, sometimes being whirled downward, and again tossed upward at the will of the wind. The airship was well-nigh helpless, and Tom, as he realized their position, could not repress a fear in his heart as he thought of the parents of the girl he loved being tossed about on the swirling ocean, in a frail pleasure yacht.

  CHAPTER XII

  A Downward Glide

  They sat in the cabin of the airship, staring helplessly at each other. Occasionally Tom rose to attend to one of the machines, or Mr. Fenwick did the same. Occasionally, Mr. Damon uttered a remark. Then there was silence, broken only by the howl of the gale.

  It seemed impossible for the Whizzer to travel any faster, yet when Tom glanced at the speed gage he noted, with a feeling of surprise, akin to horror, that they were making close to one hundred and fifty miles an hour. Only an aeroplane could have done it, and then only when urged on by a terrific wind which added to the speed produced by the propellers.

  The whole craft swayed and trembled, partly from the vibration of the electrical machinery, and partly from the awful wind. Mr. Fenwick came close to Tom, and exclaimed:

  “Do you think it would be any use to try once more to go above or below the path of the storm?”

  Tom’s first impulse was to say that it would be useless, but he recollected that the craft belonged to Fenwick, and surely that gentleman had a right to make a suggestion. The young inventor nodded.

  “We’ll try to go up,” he said. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll see if I can force her down. It will be hard work, though. The wind is too stiff.”

  Tom shifted the levers and rudders. His eyes were on the barograph—that delicate instrument, the trembling hand of which registered their height. Tom had tilted the deflection rudder to send them up, but as he watched the needle he saw it stationary. They were not ascending, though the great airship was straining to mount to an upper current where there might be calm.

  It was useless, however, and Tom, seeing the futility of it, shifted the rudder to send them downward. This was more easily accomplished, but it was a change for the worse, since, the nearer to the ocean they went, the fiercer blew the wind.

  “Back! Go back up higher!” cried Mr. Damon,

  “We can’t!” yelled Tom. “We’ve got to stay here now!”

  “Oh, but this is awful!” exclaimed Mr. Fenwick. “We can never stand this!”

  The airship swaged more than ever, and the occupants were tossed about in the cabin, from side to side. Indeed, it did seem that human beings never could come alive cut of that fearful ordeal.

  As Tom looked from one of the windows of the cabin, he noted a pale, grayish sort of light outside. At first he could not understand what it was, then, as he observed the sickly gleams of the incandescent electric lamps, he knew that the hour of dawn was at hand.

  “See!” he exclaimed to his companions, pointing to the window. “Morning is coming.”

  “Morning!” gasped Mr. Damon. “Is the night over? Now, perhaps we shall get rid of the storm.”

  “I’m afraid not,” answered Tom, as he noted the anemometer and felt the shudderings of the Whizzer as she careened on through the gale. “It hasn’t blown out yet!”

  The pale light increased. The electrics seemed to dim and fade. Tom looked to the engines. Some of the apparatus was in need of oil, and he supplied it. When he came back to the main cabin, where stood Mr. Damon and Mr. Fenwick, it was much lighter outside.

  “Less than a day since we left Philadelphia,” murmured the owner of the Whizzer, as he glanced at a distance indicator, “yet we have come nearly sixteen hundred miles. We certainly did travel top speed. I wonder where we are?”

  “Still over the ocean,” replied Mr. Damon, as he looked down at the heaving billows rolling amid crests of foam far below them. “Though what part of it would be hard to say. We’ll have to reckon out our position when it gets calmer.”

  Tom came from the engine room. His face wore a troubled look, and he said
, addressing the older inventor:

  “Mr. Fenwick, I wish you’d come and look at the gas generating apparatus. It doesn’t seem to be working properly.”

  “Anything wrong?” asked Mr. Damon, suspiciously.

  “I hope not,” replied Tom, with all the confidence he could muster. “It may need adjusting. I am not so familiar with it as I am with the one on the Red Cloud. The gas seems to be escaping from the bag, and we may have to descend, for some distance.”

  “But the aeroplanes will keep us up,” said Mr. Daman.

  “Yes—they will,” and Tom hesitated. “That is, unless something happens to them. They are rather frail to stand alone the brunt of the gale, and I wish—”

  Tom did not complete the sentence. Instead, he paused suddenly and seemed to be intently listening.

  From without there came a rending, tearing, crashing sound. The airship quivered from end to end, and seemed to make a sudden dive downward. Then it appeared to recover, and once more glided forward.

  Tom, followed by Mr. Fenwick, made a rush for the compartment where the machine was installed. They had no sooner reached it than there sounded an explosion, and the airship recoiled as if it had hit a stone wall.

  “Bless my shaving brush! What’s that?” cried Mr. Damon. “Has anything happened?”

  “I’m rather afraid there has,” answered Tom, solemnly. “It sounded as though the gas bag went up. And I’m worried over the strength of the planes. We must make an investigation!”

  “We’re falling!” almost screamed Mr. Fenwick, as he glanced at the barograph, the delicate needle of which was swinging to and fro, registering different altitudes.

  “Bless my feather bed! So we are!” shouted Mr. Damon. “Let’s jump, and avoid being caught under the airship!”

  He darted for a large window, opening from the main cabin, and was endeavoring to raise it when Tom caught his hand.

  “What are you trying to do,” asked the lad, hoarsely.

  “Save my life! I want to get out of this as soon as I can. I’m going to jump!”

  “Don’t think of it! You’d be instantly killed. We’re too high for a jump, even into the ocean.”