The Phantom Airman

  *CHAPTER XX*

  *"HANDS UP!"*

  "Haende in die hohe!" cried Keane as soon as the last message had beensent.

  "Der Teufel!" gasped the professor as two swift shadows darted out frombehind the curtain, and the two men whom he had just been discussingwith such utter contempt confronted him and his accomplice with gleamingpistols.

  "Hands up!" repeated Keane, anxious to give the professor anotherchance.

  With a blasphemous oath the man of evil genius, who saw that he had beenoutwitted, reached for a small hand grenade which lay beside him on thetable, and shouted:--

  "Never!"

  "Then take that!" cried the Englishman, and two puffs of greenish smoke,following a sharp crackle, burst simultaneously from the pistols, forthey had both fired together.

  The new Asphixor bullets took immediate effect. Both the Germansstaggered, clutched their throats as though to ward off the effects ofthis new powerful gas recently discovered and adapted by that eminentBritish scientist, Sir Joseph Verne--then lurched and fell, whilst theiropponents stepped back and quickly fitted on their safety masks.

  "They are both sound asleep," observed Keane, when, the fumes havingcleared away, he threw aside his respirator and carefully examined theunconscious men.

  "Let them sleep," said Sharpe, who would have adopted even more drasticmeasures if he could have had his own way. "'Tis scant mercy they wouldhave shown to us if we had been in their power."

  "And now let us get to work, for they will awaken in seven or eighthours, and we have much to do. We must prepare for Colonel Tempest, andalso for this raider," urged Keane.

  "But they will not come to-day, Captain."

  "Scarcely, but we must be prepared for anything. There are only acouple of us."

  "Shall we secure these men, in case they awake earlier than thestipulated time?"

  "No, let us remove their slumbering forms behind the curtain there; wewill attend to them before they awake. I do not like the idea ofstrapping down unconscious men, even though they are criminals. We willwatch them from time to time."

  Then for the next half-hour they carried out a careful examination ofthe hangar and its contents. They were amazed at the intricate andwonderful mechanism with which the place was fitted. It seemedimpossible that these things could have been transported hither withoutattracting attention. Parts of aeroplane wings, struts, propellers,engine-fittings, strange, weird-looking cylinders, retorts, analyticalappliances, instruments and vessels for chemical research, powerful butsilent dynamos, and numberless other things, all neatly arranged, andapparently in working order, half filled the place.

  The further they carried their investigation the more were these twoEnglishmen bewildered by what they saw.

  "Is it possible," gasped Keane, "or am I only dreaming? We havediscovered the home of the super-alchemist. After this, nothing willsurprise me."

  "We have discovered the devil's workshop," replied Sharpe, who did notappear to be half so enraptured as his friend.

  "Nay, we shall find the philosopher's stone, or the _elixir vitae_soon," replied Keane, continuing his investigation.

  "We are more likely to find the _elixir mortis_ than anything else,"said the gloomy one. "This place gives me the shivers. I am sure thatI shall have cold feet for the rest of my life."

  "After this, Hermes and Geber will be dull reading," continued theenthusiast. "Give me the Schwarzwald every time for the real thrill ofthe alchemist."

  "Their time might have been more profitably employed, at any rate,"remarked Sharpe.

  "Yes, it is a thousand pities that the wonderful brain which designedand organised all this should have had nothing better in view thanbrigandage and world revolution."

  "More misdirected energy," moaned Sharpe; "the greatest brains oftenmake the greatest criminals."

  "You're a veritable misanthrope, Sharpe!" said his companion, laughing.

  "I have reason to be," returned the other.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean this--we're not out of the wood yet."

  "I agree; we're in the very centre of it," replied Keane.

  "Yet you did not inflict the _coup de grace_ on the diabolical vipers,and they will shortly awake. Moreover, the _Scorpion_ may arriveunexpectedly, and we shall be unprepared for her."

  "What would you do?"

  "Bring over the machines from Mulhausen, ready to fight this air fiendwhen he comes."

  "Ho! So you're longing for another real air fight, are you, like the'scraps' we used to have with the Richthofen 'circus'?"

  "At any rate, we'd better prepare. Then I'd bind those two criminalshand and foot or surround them with live wires, so that, should theyawake unexpectedly, they would not dare to stir."

  "There is certainly something in what you suggest about bringing theaeroplanes over, though we should have a deuce of a job to land them inthis place; they're by no means possessed of the powers of a helicopter.However, I'll get into touch with Colonel Tempest and ask for immediateassistance, and also ask him to bring over Professor Verne toinvestigate these mysterious engineering and chemical appliances."

  So, leaving the workshop, the live wires and the prisoners to the careof Sharpe, the senior airman devoted all the rest of that morning toinvestigating the wireless apparatus, examining the secret codes, andtrying to get into touch with the Commissioner of Aerial Police. Inthis, however, he was not very successful, for the air was full ofmessages, concerning an overdue air-liner which had been expected forsome time at Cairo. Perhaps his message had been jammed or lost in theaerial jostle.

  Colonel Tempest was almost at his wits' end. He sorely needed the helpof his able assistants. He wanted to send them out east to chase thisdaring brigand off the trade routes.

  He was unable also to comply with the request for assistance, when atlength it did reach him, for all his best fighting men, with theexception of these two in the Black Forest, had been sent after theraider. He promised, however, to come personally at the earliestpossible moment, as soon as matters had been cleared up a little.

  Again and again Keane tried to reach him with brief, but urgent codedmessages, for he was now getting extremely anxious lest the raidershould appear before they were ready. Sharpe, however, who waseminently practical, had taken the professor's own tip, and had laidwires across the glade, which, when properly connected up, would make ita dangerous proceeding for a hostile aeroplane to land there, while, inthe event of a friendly one appearing, the current could be immediatelyswitched off. He had seen to the prisoners as well, for, unknown toKeane, he had, on the first signs of awakening, given to each of them asufficiently strong soporific to extend the period of their quiescencefor a considerably longer period, so that, late that afternoon, hisfriend was somewhat alarmed at their quietude.

  That night they watched in turns, and relieved each other every twohours. When morning came they climbed the highest trees and scanned thehorizon in every direction for the promised help, and also for the_Scorpion_. But although the column of smoke from the fire which hadbeen lighted, ascended all day in one long grey streak to guide theBritish airmen, yet morning wore on to afternoon, and no assistancecame.

  Keane sent message after message, but apparently to no purpose. Thevery heavens were full of messages, for the whole civilized world hadbeen roused by the last daring feat of the phantom airman. London,Paris, Cairo, Delhi and New York were clamouring for his immediatecapture and execution. Strong things, too, were being said about theincapacity of the much vaunted aerial police, but all the world realisedthat the task before these men was almost superhuman.

  Twice an urgent message came recalling the two Englishmen, but Keanereplied with the one word, "Impossible!"

  And all this time the raider, who was carefully hiding for a few days,delighted his companions by retailing with much gusto such of thesemessages as he had been able to piece together from the aerial jumble.
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  "Let them send all their available machines and pilots out east," he hadsaid to Carl and Max, "then we will quietly slip across Europe toIreland, where everything is ripe for the promised revolution."

  "And the Schwarzwald?" queried Max.

  "Oh, we will call there for a few hours en route," replied the pirate,calmly relighting his pipe, "The professor will understand our silenceand inactivity."

  So the third morning came, and Keane, whose anxiety regarding the stillsleeping prisoners had been allayed by Sharpe, who smilingly confessedwhat he had done, now became fearfully uneasy as to the condition ofaffairs.

  "For heaven's sake light that beacon again!" he ordered. "If assistancedoes not arrive to-day, all these secrets I have endeavoured to rescuewill be lost."

  "What will you do?" asked his companion, who was already applying amatch to the pile of dried tinder and sticks.

  "Blow the whole place up," he replied.

  "And shoot the prisoners?" ventured his friend, slyly.

  "No."

  "What then?"

  "Rouse them up, somehow, handcuff them together and take them away."

  "Some job that," remarked Sharpe, looking up at the long thin trail ofsmoke, for there was still an absence of wind currents.

  Even as he gazed into the sky, however, he caught sight of a tiny speckhovering at twelve thousand feet, and he almost shouted, "Aeroplane!"

  "Where?" asked his startled comrade, whose nerves had undergone somestrain during the past few days.

  "Right up in the blue. There, can you see her?"

  "Yes, I have her now, but she's very high. Can it be the _Scorpion_, doyou think?" asked the senior.

  "Cannot say yet. I'll fetch the glasses."

  "Run for them, quickly! I cannot hear her engines at all. It must bethe brigand."

  "Ah, there, I hear the engines now, very faintly, though. Rolls-Royceengines too, thank God!" exclaimed Keane fervently, as he recognised thewell-known sound, and knew that assistance had arrived at last, in theshape of at least one Bristol Fighter.

  "It's all right, Sharpe. Cut off that beastly current. Tempest will behere in a minute."

  "Are you sure it's Tempest?"

  "Yes. Listen to that! Now he's cut his engine out again, and he'scoming down. It's the chief right enough; I should know his flyingamongst a score of aeroplanes."

  The wires were cut off, a temporary landing-tee quickly rigged up on theground, and frantic signals were made to the pilot, who was now rapidlycoming down in sharp spirals.

  A few minutes later the intrepid pilot flattened out above the treetops, dipped again, banked steeply, and sideslipped almost to theground, in order to get into the confined and narrow space which servedthe _Scorpion_ for an aerodrome. Scarcely had he landed when anothermachine, which had followed him from England, performed the samehighly-skilled manoeuvre, and taxied up to the little group.