CHAPTER XXIII.
SAVED BY WIRELESS.
Frank was right. To keep on was all they could do. Without even a starto guide them and a wind fast springing up, surrounded by a display ofelectricity, that viewed from a place of safety would have beenmagnificent, but situated as they were was a terrible menace, they hadno alternative.
The boy captain of the _Golden Eagle_ stuck bravely to his wheel andtime and again when the vessel gave a sickening “duck,” he righted herin the nick of time with a skilful adjustment of his planes andcompensating balances. Neither boy spoke—indeed, in the roar of theelements that now surrounded them, it would have been difficult to hear.Crash followed crash so swiftly that like the lightning display itseemed all blended into one long horrible glare and uproar. Still,mercifully, it had not rained.
Harry crawled forward after a time from his seat by the engine andshouted in Frank’s ear:
“Where are we now?”
“Driving due east, I should judge.”
“Have you any hope that we can make a landing?”
Frank shook his head.
“Not in this.”
“Then there is only one thing to be done?”
“Yes.”
“Keep on driving her?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Good Lord!” thought Harry, “if the gasolene would hold out we’d land inEurope.”
The above conversation was not carried on in consecutive order asreported. The exigencies of guiding the craft, and the noise of thestorm, made that an impossibility. Fragmentary sentences were all theboys could exchange, but they understood one another so well that withthem a word meant as much as a whole sentence.
On and on drove the plunging craft and still the accident both boys hadfeared—the short circuiting of the engine—had not occurred. Could it bethat they were going to weather it after all? Wild as the thoughtappeared, it put new heart into them.
“Do you know where we are?” asked Harry, clinging to the forward rail ofthe pilot-house.
“Not the slightest idea,” was the reply, “but I should say we cannot befar from the sea.”
The sea! The realization of this new peril sent a chill of terrorthrough both boys. Once blown out to sea and they would stand not achance of rescue.
“Hadn’t we better chance it and drop where we are?” asked Harry atlength.
Frank shook a negative response.
“It would mean certain death—we should be dashed to pieces,” he said;“if we keep on we’ve got a fighting chance.”
As they were urged along before the storm Harry opened the trap in thepilot-house floor and peered through. By the blue illumination of theconstant lightning display, he could see that they were still drivingover the tree-tops. They were then still over solid land.
There was not a light to be seen, however, and wherever they were, theyhad been driven out of the civilized part of Nicaragua it seemed. Theboys’ hearts sank as they gazed at the character of the country overwhich they were racing along. As Frank had said, there was not a chancefor them to land there. They might ride the storm out if they kept ongoing—that was all they could do.
Once Frank entertained a desperate thought of heading the ship about,but as he put the helm over she gave such a frightful yaw that both boysthought the minute was their last. The _Golden Eagle_ plunged down in asickening swerve till it seemed that she could never right herself.Frantically Frank, although he could hardly keep his feet on theinclined pilot-house floor, which was pitched over at an angle offorty-five degrees, fought to bring her back on an even keel with onehand, while he clung to the pilot-house rail with the other.
After what had seemed an eternity of suspense the craft answered herhelm and regulating planes and regained her balance. The scare the boyshad received, though, prevented them from trying any more experiments.Thoroughly exhausted Frank at last relinquished the wheel to Harry, atthe latter’s earnest solicitation. As the boys changed places the ship,none too steady under the conditions, gave a lurch to port that threwFrank from his feet and sent him crashing against the left-hand rail ofthe pilot-house. The force of the impact of his body snapped off thestanchions that supported the canvas screening round the pilot-box andhe would have shot over the edge into countless feet of space if Harryhad not grasped him and hauled him back to safety. Frank thanked himwith a look. It was no time for words.
“Hark,” suddenly cried Frank, as there came a lull in the storm, “whatis that?”
Below them both boys could hear a long, booming sound.
“It’s the surf breaking on the beach!” groaned Frank, “only Providencecan save us now.”
How much longer they drove on above the sea, they had no means ofreckoning, even if they had cared to. Their only hope was in daylightwhen there was a chance that some ship might see them and pick them up.Harry sat grimly at the wheel, keeping the creaking ship dead before thewind, which had now increased.
“It’s not much use,” he shouted to Frank, who lay on the pilot-housefloor so as to keep the center of equilibrium as low as possible, “butwe might as well stick to it as long as the engine does.”
Frank nodded and shouted back his favorite “While there’s life there’shope.”
Suddenly, while an unusually prolonged and vivid flash enveloped the_Golden Eagle_ and showed a wild sea leaping hungrily below her, Harrygave a loud shout:
“Frank, Frank,” he yelled, “look there!”
He pointed a little to the north of the direction the _Golden Eagle_ wastaking, or rather being driven, which, though the boys did not know it,was due east.
The elder brother raised his head above the pilot-house railing but theflash that illumined the object that caused Harry’s exclamation had diedout.
“It was a steamer and she’ll pass right below us,” roared Harry.
“How can we attract their attention,” shouted back Frank.
“There’s one chance in a thousand and we’ll take it,” was the responseof the youth at the wheel.
“Send out a wireless call.”
Frank leaped to the sending apparatus of the _Golden Eagle’s_ wirelessplant. To his delirious delight it was working perfectly despite theship’s buffeting.
Even as he stripped off the cover, and lowered the ground rope which wasinterwoven with strands of phosphor bronze wire, though, he realizedwhat a long chance it was they were taking. The steamer was nearer bythis time. They could in fact see her lights below them; but she seemeda small craft, as well as they in their frenzied excitement at thesudden vision of hope that flamed up in them, could make out. It wasunlikely she carried wireless. But, as Harry had said, it was one chancein a thousand. With a fervent prayer that it might be that ten hundredthchance, Frank sent the spark flashing and leaping across the cracklinggap.
Dot—dot—dot! Dot—dot! Dot—dot—dot!
It was the universal signal of desperate need that his trembling fingersspelled out: S. O. S.![1]
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Footnote 1:
S. O. S. is now the wireless distress call. C. Q. D., the former tocsin having being used by too many would-be humorous amateurs to make its continuance advisable.—_Author’s note._
If there were a ship fitted with wireless within the radius of theircall she would come to their assistance, but both boys realized thatthat help would be too late to do them any good. Their one chance lay insecuring the immediate attention of the craft below them.
“Fire your revolver, Harry!” shouted Frank, bending above the flaringsender spark.
The younger boy drew his magazine gun from his belt and fired all tenbullets it contained in a string of reports.
There came a blinding glare of lightning. In its radiance the boys, highin the air, could see below them the scene on the steamer as if in thelight of day. The men on the steamer had evidently also seen them orheard the reports of Harry’s revolver, or what was more likely, receivedthe wireless
flash. Men were running about her decks and on the bridgethe boys could see some one, evidently in command, issuing orders toseveral sailors who were casting loose a boat.
Their inspection was cut short. As the next flash revealed to them aboat being lowered over the side of the vessel and men pointing up atthem, something parted with a loud crack.
It was one of the rudder wires that had carried away and a more seriousaccident at that moment could not have well befallen them. The _GoldenEagle_ without her rudder controls heeled over drunkenly till, with aloud crashing sound, her engine was ripped clean out of her by its ownweight.
The next minute the boys felt themselves dropping through what seemedendless space down to the roaring sea.
Even as they fell Frank realized that the parting of the engine from itsbed had been a piece of good luck for them for relieved of that weight,there was a chance of the aeroplane floating by her own buoyancy tillthe boat could pick them up. All this shot through his mind in a second,and almost as it occurred to him he felt the aeroplane hit the waterwith a mighty thump. The next moment Frank felt the water close abovehis head and began fighting desperately to regain the surface.
Fortunately both he and Harry were skilled swimmers and as much at homein the water as Newfoundland dogs. As Frank at last found himself safe,clinging to the top of the half-submerged aeroplane, he anxiously lookedabout him for Harry. What he feared was that Harry might have gotentangled in the stay wires or tiller ropes as the _Golden Eagle_ fellinto the sea.
To Frank’s unspeakable relief, however, at this juncture, he heard hisname called right behind him, and a second later he had fished Harry outof the sea and hauled him up beside him on to the gradually sinkingwreck of the _Golden Eagle_. They both joined in a lusty shout toattract the attention of the men in the boat they had seen lowered justbefore their dizzy fall.
Their shouts were hardly needed, however, for, from the bridge of thevessel, there shot out a long finger of radiance from the searchlightwhich, after sweeping about a few times, fell full on the boys. Drenchedas they were they could not forbear waving their hands and giving acheer as its light fell full on them.
Fifteen minutes later the Boy Aviators were on board the insurgentgunboat _General Estrada_ and safe.