The Phantom Airman
*CHAPTER XIII*
*THE MISSING AIRSHIP*
Horrified and aghast at the foul deed which had been done, thepassengers and crew of the air-liner, who had left the gondolas at thecry of consternation which went up, now crowded around the fallenprince. Even those fierce sons of the desert who witnessed the dire actcould not restrain an involuntary shudder, but they merely shruggedtheir shoulders, or remarked: "Kismet! It is the will of Allah, theCompassionate, the Merciful," and after some such invocation, theirpiety appeared to be satisfied, for they immediately returned to theirtreasure.
The captain and his friends were loud in their protestations andimprecations after their first and futile attempts to rouse theprostrate man, for they believed him to be already dead. They glared atthe pseudo caliph, who appeared to be entirely unmoved by theheart-rending spectacle. And if, at that moment, any weapon of offencehad remained in their possession, it would certainly have been turnedupon the offender, whom they now regarded as a murderer.
But every weapon had been carefully removed from the air-liner and hercomplement; even the unmounted machine-gun and the one box of ammunitionplaced aboard on her first voyage, were now in possession of thebandits.
The captain in particular was furious, and he turned upon the Germanfiercely, shook his fist at him and cried, "One day you will pay forthis, sirrah! The arm of Britain is long enough to reach you!"
A mocking laugh was the only reply which the German gave. Then, lookingonce more at his jewelled watch, he signified that the time for theairship's departure had almost arrived.
"Three minutes more and I shall cut her adrift," he said.
"But the maharajah?" asked the captain. "What can we do with him; wecannot leave his body to the vultures."
"Bah! Take him away with you. He will live again in seven hours; itwas only morphine!"
Bewildered, but yet relieved by these words, they quickly ascertainedthat the prostrate man was not actually dead, and they hurriedly placedhim aboard the airship and administered emetics.
"Let us get him away at once," urged the Indian judge; "perhaps thehigher altitudes will quickly dissipate the effects of the morphine."
"Are you ready there?" shouted the caliph, who had ridden with hisescort up to the central gondola.
"Yes," came the response.
"Then remember, the next time that you invade my dominions without mypermission you will not escape so easily. As you know to your cost, theKing of the Hamadian desert is able to defend himself and his people,even from the insults of a great power."
The captain made a slight bow, half ironical, in response to this kinglyassertion, and asked,
"Is there any communication which your majesty would like to havedelivered to my Government?"
"Yes," replied the monarch, drawing from under his loose robe a sealedpacket, which he appeared to have had in readiness for the occasion. Itwas addressed as follows:--
"To Colonel John Tempest, D.S.O., M.C..Chief Commissioner of the British AerialPolice, Scotland Yard, London,"
and across the top left-hand corner it was marked "_Confidential_," andalso "_To be delivered personally by the Captain of the Air-Liner,Empress of Britain_."
The skipper, apparently bewildered for a moment by this strange request,for it seemed to him like a letter from a condemned man to hisexecutioner, looked the packet over for a few seconds. Noting the greatred seal on the back, he read the imprint embossed on the huge wafer.It read as follows, and was circular in form:--
"From Sultan von Selim, Air-King of the Hamadian desert," and the crestwas a scorpion, with the solitary word in Latin, "_Scorpio_."
The caliph waited patiently until the captain had examined the exteriorof the packet, and recovered from his amazement, and then said, "Beforeyou depart, Captain, you must promise me that you will deliver thatpacket in person to Colonel Tempest, who is not unknown to me."
The captain did not answer for a few seconds, for he was wondering whatnew conspiracy was this. He was wondering also whether the conveyanceof this packet was not after all the real reason for the forced descentof the airship.
"Do you promise, Captain?" asked his interrogator, looking at himfixedly.
"Yes, I promise."
"On your honour?"
"On my word of honour, I promise to deliver it."
"Then good-bye. I will 'wireless' the patrols to look out for you."
"Thank you," replied the skipper acidly.
And the next moment, seeing that only his own accomplices and reputedsubjects were left on the ground, the Sultan gave the order, "Let go!"
So the huge cable was slipped, and the leviathan left her moorings atonce. The north-west wind carried her clear of the trees, and, as shehad left nearly two tons of her most precious cargo behind, she roserapidly, then started falteringly on her long journey to Cairo as hertwo remaining Sunbeam-Maori engines burst into life.
The sun, which had shone with pitiless might upon the Arabian desertthat day, was sinking like a huge red ball beneath the horizon when thegreat air-liner, drifting considerably from her course, but still makingprogress in her journey towards Cairo, disappeared from the watchers'view.
With strange impartiality, inexplicable in such a robber-bandit, thespoil had been divided amongst the Bedouins, who, to their bewildermentand surprise, were now rich, each one of them, beyond the dreams ofavarice. Their gratitude to Allah, the Giver of all Good, and to thegreat white sheik was unbounded. Never before had their greedy eyesbeheld such treasure; never before had they gained a prize so easily;and some of them even wondered whether, after all, Mohammed had notappeared to the Faithful once more in the person of the great whitesheik.
Long before midnight, however, the last man, with heavily-laden beast ofburden, had disappeared, swallowed up, as it were, by the very sands ofthe desert, so that, when the full round moon approached the meridianand changed the gold of the desert to silver, not a vestige of man orbeast remained. And of the camp, only a few ashes marked the spot whereonce a fire had burned. The _Scorpion_, too, had taken its departurefor an unknown destination, carrying its mysterious crew far, far awayfrom these burning sands, for the indomitable commander knew only toowell that the captain spoke truthfully when he said that the arm ofBritain was very long, and could even reach to this wild desert land.
Before his departure, however, Heinrich von Spitzer had sent off hispromised message in laconic terms to the Cairo patrols. It ran asfollows:--
"Air-liner _Empress_ with damaged engines crossing desert towards Cairo.Lat. 29-50 N., Long. 40-25 E. drifting W.S.W. Wireless deranged.SCORPIO."
"Piece of bad luck, sir!" remarked the commissioner's assistant at Cairowhen he received the message.
"H'm! She carries the Indian mail, too," replied his chief.
"Yes, and a good deal more, sir."
"What else does she carry this trip besides passengers and mails?" askedthe alert commissioner.
"That big loading of specie, sir, for the Bank of England. Nearly a tonof gold, I believe."
"Phew! And isn't the maharajah of somewhere or other coming on a statevisit to the King also?"
"Yes, by Jove, so he is! We had a message this morning saying that hewould travel by the _Empress_."
"Heaven help us if she comes down in the desert with that cargo. TheBedouins would soon make short work of it. The authorities rely toomuch upon the patrols for these long journeys," said the commissioner.
"We were asked to take particular care over her this trip. The Delhipatrols accompanied her part of the way, and she was all right up tomid-day, but she hasn't spoken to us since. I have sent out one or twomessages and have had the patrols ready to go out and meet her, as soonas I heard again from her, giving her position, sir."
"And you've had no further reply till this message came in?" asked thechief.
"No, sir."
"By the way, is her wireless damaged as well as her
engine? I didn'tnotice."
"Yes, sir. The message says: 'Wireless deranged,'" replied theassistant, re-reading from the aerogram.
"Then who the deuce sent the message?"
"Scorpio---- But who Scorpio is I can't make out. It must have beensome passing airman, for it cannot have been one of our own patrols."
"Phew! The mystery deepens. Get the patrols out at once, and tell themto take plenty of ammunition with them. It will take a few rounds toscare off those Bedouin fiends if once they get round a carcase wherethere are such pickings."
"I don't think there's much to worry about in that respect. Those Arabshave a wholesome fear of these air-liners, sir. However, I will get themachines off at once."