CHAPTER XX.
“ALL OUR LIVES DEPEND ON IT.”
Nat staggered toward the door of the pilot-house. Mr. Tubbs, at thewheel, the least affected of the adventurers, turned his head.
“What are you doing to do?” he demanded.
“Get that valve open,” was the brief reply.
“Boy, you are crazy!”
“Maybe, but I’m going to make a try for it, anyhow. All our livesdepend upon it.”
“By hooky, if it’s to be done, you’ll do it, and if not, why then, Iguess we’ll have to meet death as bravely as we can,” was Mr. Tubbs’muttered remark, as Nat plunged out of the door.
In the cabin Ding-dong, breathing hard, lay on a narrow bunk. Matco wasstretched on the floor, apparently unconscious. Nat gazed at them halfstupidly.
“Pretty far gone,” was the thought that came into his dazed mind. Thenhe plunged on again, reeling as he went, his mind concentrated withbitter intensity on the task that lay before him. Gaining the deck, hefound the cold almost too much for him, and he turned back for aninstant and donned warmer clothing from the professor’s chest.
Then he doggedly proceeded with his self-imposed task. He noticed thatthe engine had stopped. The bitter cold had condensed the moisturewithin it and frozen the lubricating oil.
But Nat wasted no time on these observations. What he had to do must bedone quickly if at all.
Gazing upward at the huge bulging curve of the under side of the gasbag, he saw the broken ends of the valve cord fluttering from the bag.They were far above his reach, even if the securing of them would havedone him any good.
It was only for an instant that he paused. Then, summoning up everyounce of resolution in his determined mind, he seized hold of thestarboard rigging and began clambering up and outward.
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Nat climbed by sheer force of will power.]
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He did not dare to look down into the awful void beneath him—vast andempty as eternity itself. Keeping his eyes steadily fixed on thebulging bag, Nat climbed by sheer force of will power till he was up tothe network that encased the bag.
Right here began the most difficult and terrifying part of his task.Hanging desperately above the immensity beneath him, he had to make hisway to the upper part of the bag. He did not dare to think of what hewas doing. The very notion of it made him feel sick and dizzy. The ladjust climbed, fixing his mind on the thought of reaching and openingthe valve.
Somehow—to this day Nat couldn’t tell you how—he clambered round underthe bulge of the bag and began the easier task of making his way up thetightly rounded sides to the top of the great cylindrical gascontainer. As the professor had surmised, ice had formed on the outsideof the bag, and made Nat’s endeavor ten times more hazardous anddifficult. This ice had clogged the valve ropes, and Nat saw that theonly thing to do was, as he had made up his mind, to climb on till hereached the top of the bag.
The possibilities of a slip were awful, and Nat no more dared thinkabout them than he had about the chances of his slipping when he washanging between earth and sky under the lower part of the bag. Heresolutely dismissed them from his mind.
But the physical difficulties of the lad’s self-imposed task werealmost overwhelming. There was a sharp pain in his chest, and his limbsfelt as if they had leaden weights attached to them. Suddenly a warmstream of something Nat knew to be blood, gushed from his nose; butstill he worked his way upward, climbing amidst the network meshes likea sailor on ratlines.
Once or twice he was compelled to pause from sheer exhaustion, and,clinging on with might and main, to spread himself flat on the surfaceof the gas bag to rest.
If Nat had not been a clean-lived lad all his life, and had not been ahater of smoking and bad company, he would never have been able toendure this ordeal; but somehow, his young vitality won out, and atlast he could reach out a hand and touch the valve.
Bracing himself against the rigging, he tugged with all his might. Butthe condensed moisture had formed ice on the valve, and it stuck.
Nat felt a childish rage take possession of him. Raising his fists, hebeat and tore at the valve, while tears of physical weakness andexhaustion streamed down his cheeks.
“I will get you open! I will! I will!” he cried again and again.
But even his frame gave way at last, and suddenly his eyes grew dim andhe felt as if a sword had been plunged through and through him.
As everything grew black, Nat, with a last effort of consciousness,clutched at something to save himself from being plunged backward intospace.
He caught it, or thought he did, and then his senses went out from himwith a vivid flash and a terrible roaring in his ears like the sound ofa hundred waterfalls.
* * * * *
Half an hour later, or at ten o’clock, Joe Hartley opened his eyes. Atfirst he hardly knew what had befallen him; but in a few seconds hisrecollection came back with a rush. He remembered that the _Discoverer_had seemed doomed, recalled Nat’s plunge through the door and how hehad tried to follow his chum, but had fallen, overcome by exhaustion,at the door.
But now all the chill was out of the air, bright sunlight streamedthrough the pilot-house ports, and the professor and Mr. Tubbs, both ofwhom had collapsed on the floor, were sitting up looking about themrather bewilderedly. The professor was the first to speak.
“A miracle has happened,” he declared. “The _Discoverer_ is out ofdanger.”
“The barograph shows twenty-five hundred feet,” announced Joe, who hadbeen studying that instrument.
“Where are the others?” asked Mr. Tubbs, rising rather weakly to hisfeet.
As if in answer to his question, Ding-dong Bell appeared in the doorwaybetween the pilot-house and the main cabin.
“Where’s Nat?” he demanded.
“Isn’t he out there with you?” asked Joe, with a quick leap of hisheart.
“No. The only person out there is Matco. He’s so scared that he’s underthe ber-ber-bunk.”
“Where is the lad?” demanded the professor earnestly, with a note ofanxiety in his voice.
Mr. Tubbs, who had been struggling with his dim memory of eventspreceding his collapse, spoke:
“I recall it now,” he said. “Nat said he was going to get that valveopen”—he paused—“somehow.”
“And you let him go?” demanded the professor.
“I—I didn’t mean to,” stammered the repentant Mr. Tubbs, “but I was sonearly on the verge of caving in, that I couldn’t carry out my resolve.”
“Search the craft thoroughly,” ordered the professor, lines of anxietyshowing in his face, “there was only one way to open that valve.”
They looked their questions.
“And that was by climbing around the gas bag and opening it by hand.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Joe. “And Nat dared do such a thing!”
“He must have, and succeeded, too,” said the professor in a curiouslytense voice, “the opening of that valve was the only thing that wouldresult in our having dropped to a supportable region of the air.”
“But we are dropping no longer.”
The exclamation came from Mr. Tubbs.
“No. The automatic cut-off arrangement would have closed the valve whenwe had reached a warmer belt of atmosphere,” explained the professor,“but don’t let us lose time talking here. Scatter through the_Discoverer_ and make a thorough search. He may have droppedunconscious somewhere.”
The anxiety with which the search was conducted may be imagined. The_Discoverer_ was allowed to drift lazily along while they sought sometrace of the missing lad, but the search resulted in nothing.
“There is only one conclusion to be reached,” said the professor in asolemn voice, “poor Nat paid the penalty of his brave
ry with his life.He——”
The man of science broke off, unable to command his voice, and at thesame instant came a cry from above them—a hail from out of the air, itseemed:
“Hello, people!”
“Good heavens! It’s Nat!” fairly shouted the professor, as Nat, whosefeet were alone visible round the bulge of the gas bag, clamberednimbly down and dropped from the rigging, beside them.
In his excess of joy, the professor flung his arms around Nat’s neck,much to the lad’s embarrassment, while the rest fairly fought for achance to grasp his hand. In intervals of joy making, Nat told hisstory, part of which we are familiar with.
It seemed that when he swooned on the swaying balloon top heinstinctively clutched at the first thing his hand encountered, whichwas one of the valve ropes. The valve, already loosened by his poundingon it, yielded to the sudden pressure upon it and jerked open. Atleast, this was the only explanation Nat could furnish of the fortunateoccurrence.
When he came to himself he said he saw that the _Discoverer_ was at areasonable height, and manipulating the cords he again closed thevalve. He was too weak to attempt the descent at once, but layoutstretched on the top of the gas bag, regaining his strength. Allthis time he suffered with a dreadful fear that his friends below mighthave succumbed to the awful rigors of the upper air. With anapprehensive heart he at last began the climb down and he concluded:
“You may imagine how delighted I was to hear your voices, even if theprofessor was preaching my funeral sermon.”
The boys broke out into wild yells of enthusiasm.
“Three cheers for Nat Trevor, the bravest boy on earth!” shouted JoeHartley.
The shouts rang out oddly in the thin atmosphere of mid-air, but theyrelieved the boys’ feelings. As they died out, Matco appeared at thedoor of the cabin, and gazed at the scene a moment. Then seeing thatNat was the idol of the moment the Indian ran nimbly along the swayingdeck and throwing himself on his knees, placed Nat’s foot on his head.
It was the last straw.
“Say, fellows!” cried Nat with a red face, “that’s about all of thishero business. Let’s have some breakfast and get the engine going.”
And so, what might have been a tragedy, ended in one of the merriestmeals ever enjoyed by aerial travelers.
By noon the _Discoverer_, none the worse for her involuntary flightinto the icy realms of space, was able to resume her voyage over thedesolate peaks and abysses of unknown depths, above which theadventurers were now soaring.