Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle; Or, Daring Adventures in Elephant Land

by Victor Appleton

  CHAPTER XXIV

  TWO OTHER CAPTIVES

  But the rescue was not yet accomplished. Those on the airship werestill in danger, and grave peril, for all about them were the redsavages, shouting, howling, yelling and capering about, as they werenow thoroughly aroused, and realized that their captives had beentaken away from them. They determined to get them back, and wererallying desperately to battle. Nearly all of them were armed bythis time, and flight after flight of spears and arrows were thrownor shot toward the airship.

  Fortunately it was too dark to enable the pygmies to take good aim.They were guided, to an extent, by the flashes of fire from therifles, but these were only momentary. Still some of our friendsreceived slight wounds, for they stood on the open deck of thecraft.

  "Bless my eye-glasses!" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Damon. "I'm stuck!"

  "Don't mind that!" advised Ned. "Keep on pouring lead into them.We'll soon be away from here!"

  "Don't fire any more!" called Mr. Durban. "The gun-flashes tell themwhere to shoot. I'll use the electric rifle. It's better."

  They followed his advice, and put aside their weapons. By means ofthe electric flash, which he projected into the midst of thesavages, without the glare coming on the airship, Mr. Durban wasable to tell where to aim. Once he had a mass of red pygmieslocated, he could keep on shooting charge after charge into theirmidst.

  "Use it full power!" called Tom, as he opened the gas machine to itswidest capacity, so the bag would quickly fill, and the craft besent forward, for it was so dark, and the ground near the huts souneven, that the Black Hawk could not rise as an aeroplane.

  The elephant hunter turned on full strength in the electric gun andthe wireless bullets were sent into the midst of the attackers. Theresult was surprising. They were so closely packed together thatwhen one was hit the electrical shock was sent through his nearlynaked body into the naked bodies of his tribesmen who pressed onevery side of him. In consequence whole rows of the savages wentdown at a time, disabled from fighting any more.

  Meanwhile Tom was working frantically to hasten the rising of theairship. His neck pained him very much where the arrow had struckhim, but he dared not stop now to dress the wound. He could feel theblood running down his side, but he shut his teeth grimly and saidnothing.

  The two missionaries, scarcely able to believe that they were to besaved, had been shown into an inner cabin by Tomba, who had becomesomewhat used to the airship by this time, and who could find hisway about well in the dark, for no lights had yet been turned on.

  Hundreds of pygmies had been disabled, yet still others came to taketheir places. The gas bag was again punctured in several places, butthe rents were small, and Tom knew that he could make the gas fasterthan it could escape, unless the bag was ripped open.

  "They're climbing up the sides!" suddenly called Ned Newton, for hesaw several of the little men clambering up. "What shall we do?"

  "Pound their fingers!" called Mr. Anderson. "Get clubs and whackthem!" It was good advice. Ned remembered on one occasion when heand Tom were looking at Andy Foger's airship, how this method hadbeen proposed when the bank clerk hung on the back fence. As hegrabbed up a stick, and proceeded to pound the hands and bare armsof the savages who were clinging to the railing, Ned found himselfwondering what had become of the bully. He was to see Andy soonerthan he expected.

  Suddenly in the midst of the fighting, which was now a hand-to-handconflict, there was a tremor throughout the length of the airship.

  "She's going up!" yelled Ned.

  "Bless my check-book!" cried Mr. Damon, "if we don't look out someof these red imps will go up with us, too!"

  As he spoke he whacked vigorously at the hands of several of thepygmies, who dropped off with howls of anguish.

  The craft quickly shot upward. There were yells of terror from a fewof the red savages who remained clinging to different parts of theBlack Hawk and then, fearing they might be taken to the clouds,they, too, dropped off. The rescuers and rescued mounted higher andhigher, and, when they were far enough up so that there was nodanger from the spears or arrows, Tom switched on the lights, andturned the electric current into the search-lantern, the rays ofwhich beamed down on the mass of yelling and baffled savages below.

  "A few shots for them to remember us by!" cried Mr. Durban, as hesent more of the paralyzing electric currents into the red imps.Their yell of rage had now turned to shouts of terror, for thegleaming beam of light frightened them more than did the airship, orthe bullets of the white men. The red pygmies fled to their huts.

  "I guess we gave them a lesson," remarked Tom, as he started thepropellers and sent the ship on through the night.

  "Why, Tom! You're hurt!" cried Ned, who came into the pilot house atthat moment, and saw blood on his chum.

  "Only a scratch," the young inventor declared.

  "It's more than that," said Mr. Durban who looked at it a littlelater. "It must be bound up, Tom."

  And, while Ned steered the ship back to the jungle clearing whencethey had come to make the night attack, Tom's wound was dressed.

  Meanwhile the two missionaries had been well taken care of. Theywere given other garments, even some dresses being provided for Mrs.Illingway, for when the voyage was begun Tom had considered thepossibility of having a woman on board, and had bought some ladies'garments. Then, having cast down to earth the ill-smelling skinswhich formed their clothes while captives, Mr. and Mrs. Illingway,decently dressed, thanked Tom and the others over and over again.

  "We had almost given up hope," said the lady, "when we saw themdrive you back after the first attack. Oh, it is wonderful to thinkhow you saved us, and in an airship!" and she and her husband begantheir thanks over again.

  A good meal was prepared by Mr. Damon, for the rescuers and rescuedones were hungry, and since they had been held prisoners the twomissionaries had not been given very good food.

  "Oh, it hardly seems possible that we are eating with white menagain," said Mr. Illingway, as he took a second cup of coffee,"hardly possible!"

  "And to see electric lights, instead of a camp-fire," added hiswife. "What a wonderful airship you have, Tom Swift."

  "Yes, it's pretty good," he admitted. "It came in useful to-night,all right."

  They were now far enough from the savages, and the pygmies' fires,which had been set aglow anew when the attack began, could no longerbe observed.

  "We'll land at the place where we camped before," said Tom, who hadagain assumed charge of the ship, "and in the morning we'll startfor civilization."

  "No can get two other white men?" suddenly asked Tomba, who had beensitting, gazing at his recovered master and mistress. "Fly-ship goback, an' leave two white mans here?" the black asked.

  "What in the world does he mean?" demanded Tom. "Of course we're notgoing to leave any of our party behind!"

  "Let me question him," suggested Mr. Illingway, and he began to talkto the African in his own tongue. A rapid conversation followed, anda look of amazement spread over the faces of the two missionaries,as they listened.

  "What is it?" asked Mr. Durban. "What does Tomba say?"

  "Why the pygmies have two other white men in captivity," said Mr.Illingway. "They were brought in yesterday, after you were drivenaway. Two white men, or, rather a white man and a youth, accordingto Tomba. They are held in one of the huts near where we were, buttied so they couldn't escape in the confusion."

  "How does Tomba know this?" asked Mr. Damon.

  "He says," translated Mr. Illingway, after more questioning of theblack, "that he heard the red pygmies boasting of it after we hadescaped. Tomba says he heard them say that, though we were gone, andcould not be killed, or sacrificed, the other two captives wouldmeet that horrible fate."

  "Two other white captives in the hands of the red imps!" murmuredTom. "We must rescue them!"

  "You're not going to turn back now, are you?" asked Mr. Durban.

  "No, but I will as soon as I look the ship over. We'll come backto-mor
row. And we'll have to make a day attack or it will be too lateto save them. Two other white captives! I wonder who they can be."

  There was a big surprise in store for Tom Swift.