CHAPTER II.
My wife is averse to widowhood. Lately she exacted my solemn pledge notto assist Hawkins with any more of his diabolical inventions.
For a similar reason, his own good lady drew me aside a few eveningssince, and insisted upon my promising to use every means, physical forceincluded, which might prevent her "Herbert" from experimenting furtherwith his motor.
Hawkins hadn't favored me with any confidences about the motor, and atthe first opportunity I indicated with brutal directness that none wasdesired.
Hawkins inquired with frigid asperity as to my meaning; but the veryiciness of his manner satisfied me that he understood perfectly, and,believing that he was sufficiently offended to keep entirely to himselfall details of his machine--whatever it might be--I breathed moreeasily.
Some of these days one of Hawkins' inventions is going to take him on apersonally conducted tour to a quiet little grave, and I have no wish tolearn the itinerary beforehand.
Now, bitter experience has taught me that eternal vigilance is the priceof freedom from complicity with the mechanical contrivances of Hawkins,and I should have been suspicious. Yet when Hawkins appeared Sundaymorning and asked me to go for a little jaunt up the Hudson in hislaunch, I accepted with guileless good faith.
His launch was--perhaps it is still--the neatest of neat little pleasureboats, and when we left the house I anticipated several hours of keenenjoyment.
Crossing Riverside Drive, it struck me that Hawkins was hurrying, butthe balmy air, the sunshine, and the beautiful sweep of the river filledmy mind with infinite peace, and it was not until we had descended tothe little dock that I smelled anything suggestive of rat.
Hawkins climbed into the launch, and I smiled benignly on him as Ihanded down the lunch and our overcoats. I had just finished passingthem over when I stopped smiling so suddenly that it jarred my facialmuscles.
"Where has the engine gone?" I demanded.
"That engine, Griggs," responded Hawkins, pleasantly, "has gone whereall other steam engines will go within the next two years--into thescrap heap."
"Which very cheerful prophecy means----"
"It means, my dear boy, that before you stands the first full-sizedworking model of the Hawkins A. P. motor, patent applied for!"
The inventor flicked off a waterproof cover and exposed to view in thestern of the launch what looked like an inverted wash-boiler. At firstglance it appeared to be merely a dome of heavy steel, bolted to amassive bed-plate, but I didn't spend much time examining the thing.
"There, Griggs," began Hawkins, triumphantly, "in that small----"
"Hawkins," I cried, desperately, "you get out of that boat! Get out ofit, I say! Come home with me at once. I'm not going to be mixed up inany more of your wretched trial-trips. Come on, or I'll drag you out!"
Hawkins eyed me coldly for a minute, admonished me not to be an ass, andwent on untying the launch.
He is stronger and heavier than I. Frankly, had I meditated such acourse seriously, I couldn't have hoisted him out of his boat.
If I had ever studied medicine, I suppose I should have known how tostun Hawkins from above without killing him, but I have never even seenthe inside of a hospital.
Again, could I have conjured up any plausible charge, I might havecalled a policeman and requested him to incarcerate Hawkins; at themoment, however, I was a bit too flustered for such refined strategy.
Obviously, I couldn't prevent Hawkins testing his motor, but my heartquaked at the idea of accompanying him.
On the other hand, it quaked quite as much before the prospect ofreturning to his wife and admitting that I had allowed Hawkins to sailaway alone with his accursed motor.
If I went with him, a relatively easy death by drowning was about thebest I could expect. If I didn't, his wife----
I stepped down into the launch.
"Coming, are you?" observed Hawkins. "Quite the sensible thing to do,Griggs. You'll never regret it."
"God knows, I hope not," I sighed.
"Now, in the first place, I may as well call your attention again to themotor. The A. P. stands for 'almost perpetual'--good name, isn't it?You don't know much about chemistry, Griggs, or I could make the wholeproposition clear to you."
"The great point about my motor, however, is that she's run by a fluidsomewhat similar to gasolene--another of the distillation products ofpetroleum, in fact--which, having been exploded, passes into my newand absolutely unique catalytic condensers, where it is returned to itsoriginal molecular structure and run back into the reservoir."
"Hence," finished Hawkins, dramatically, "the fuel retains its chemicalintegrity indefinitely, and, as it circulates automatically throughthe motor, the little engine will run for months at a time without aparticle of attention. Is that quite clear?"
"Perfectly," I lied.
"All right. Now I'll show you how she starts," smiled the inventor,opening with a key a little door in the wash-boiler and lighting amatch.
"Careful, Hawkins, careful," I ventured, backing toward the cabin.
"My dear fellow," he sneered, "can you not grasp that in an engineof this construction, there is absolutely no danger of any kind ofexplo----"
Just then a heavy report issued from the wash-boiler. A sheet of flameseemed to flash from the little opening and precipitate Hawkins into myarms.
At any rate, he landed there with a violent shock, and I clutched himtightly, and tried to steady the launch.
"Leggo! Leggo!" he screamed. "Let me go, you idiot! It always does that!It's working now."
He was right. The launch was churning up a peculiarly serpentine wake,and the motor was buzzing furiously.
Hawkins dived toward his machinery, tinkered it with nervous haste fora little, and finally managed to head the boat down-stream just as acollision with the Palisades seemed inevitable.
"Really, Griggs," he remarked, smoothing down his ruffled feathers, "youmustn't interfere with me like that again. We might have hit somethingthat time."
"We did come near uprooting that cliff," I admitted.
Hawkins thereupon ignored me for a period of three minutes. Then histemper returned and he began a discourse on the virtues of his motor.
It was long and involved and utterly unintelligible, I think, to any onesave Hawkins. It lasted until we had passed the Battery and were in theshadow of Governor's Island.
Then it seemed time for me to remark:
"We're going to turn back pretty soon, aren't we, Hawkins?"
"Turn back? What for?"
"Well, if we're going up the Hudson, we can't run much farther in thisdirection."
"Hang the Hudson!" smiled the inventor. "We'll go down around SandyHook, eat our lunch, and be back in the city at two, sharp. Why, Griggs,this is no scow. What speed do you suppose this motor can develop?"
"I give it up."
"One hundred knots an hour!"
"Indeed?"
"Confound it! You don't believe it, do you?" snapped Hawkins, who musthave read my thoughts. "Well, she can make it easy. I'll just start herup to show you."
Argument with Hawkins is futile. I saved my breath on the chance offinding better use for it later on.
Hawkins unlocked his little door, fished around in the machinery, andfastened the door again with a calm smile.
Simultaneously, the launch seemed to leap from the water in its anxietyto get ahead. For a few seconds it quivered from end to end. Then itsettled down at a gait that actually made me gasp.
I am not positive that we made one hundred knots to the hour, but I doknow that I never traveled in an express train that hastened as did thatpoor launch when the Hawkins A. P. motor began to push it through thewater.
An account of our trip down the Narrows and into the Lower Bay wouldbe interesting, but extraneous. Hawkins sat erect beside his infernalmachine, looking like a cavalryman in the charge. I squatted in thecabin and watched things flash past.
The main point is that we reached the open water
without smashinganything or smashing into anything.
"Well, I think we may as well swing around," said Hawkins, glancingat his watch. "It's wonderful, the control I have over the launch now.Every bit of the steering-gear is located in that steel dome, along withthe motor, Griggs. Nothing at all exposed but this little wheel.
"You observed, probably, that I set it a few moments ago, so that thewind wouldn't blow us about, and haven't touched it since. Now note howwe shall turn back."
Hawkins grasped his little wheel, puffed up his chest, and gave atremendous twist.
And the wheel snapped off in Hawkins' hands!
"Why--why--why----" he stuttered, in amazement.
"Yes, now you've done it!" I rapped out, savagely. "How the dickens arewe to get back?"
"There, Griggs, there," said Hawkins, "don't be so childishly impatient.I shall simply unlock this case again and control the steering-gear fromthe inside. Certainly even you must be able to understand that."
The calm superiority of his tone was maddening.
One or two of my sentiments defied restraint.
Heaven knows I didn't suppose it would make Hawkins nervous to hearthem, but it did. His hands shook as he fumbled with the key of hissteel box, and at a particularly vicious remark of mine he stood erect.
"Well, Griggs, you've put us in a hole this time!" he groaned.
"How?"
"You made me so nervous that I snapped that key off short in the lock!"
"What!" I shrieked.
"Yes, sir. The motor's locked up in there with fuel enough to keep hergoing for three months. I can't stop her or move the rudder withoutgetting into the case, and nothing but dynamite would dent that case!"
"Then, Hawkins," I said, a terrible calm coming over me, "we shall haveto go straight ahead now until we hit something or are blown up. Am Iright?"
"Quite right," muttered Hawkins, defiantly. "And it's all your fault!"
I transfixed the inventor with a vindictive stare, until he abandonedthe attempt at bravado and looked away.
"We--we may blow back, you know," he said, vaguely, addressing thebreeze.
"The chances of that being particularly favorable by reason of yourhaving set your miserable rudder to correspond with the present wind?" Iasked. "Can't we tear up the woodwork and contrive some sort of rudder?"
"We could," admitted Hawkins, "if it wasn't all riveted down with my ownpatented rivets, which can't be removed, once they're set."
Hawkins' rivets are really what they claim to be. Only one considerationhas delayed their universal adoption. They cost a trifle less than onedollar apiece to manufacture and set.
But they stay where they are put, and I knew that if the launch'swoodwork was held together by them, it wasn't likely to come apart muchbefore Judgment Day.
"Real nice mess, isn't it, Hawkins?" I said.
"It--it might be worse."
"Far worse," I agreed. "We might be wallowing helplessly around in thoseheaving billows, or a gale might be tiring itself all out in the effortto swamp us. But, as it is, we are merely careering gaily over thesunlit waves at an unearthly speed. In a day or two, Hawkins, we shallsight the French coast, barring accidents, go ashore, and----"
"By Jove, Griggs!" exclaimed the inventor, lighting up on the instant."Do you know, I hadn't thought of that? Just let me see. Yes, my boy,at this rate we shall be in the Bay of Biscay Monday night or Tuesdaymorning, at the latest. Think of it, Griggs! Think of the fame! Thinkof----"
I couldn't bear to think of it any longer. I knew that if I thoughtabout it for another ten seconds, I should hurl Hawkins into the sea andgo to my own watery grave with murder on my hands.
The bow of the launch being the furthest possible point from its owner,I gathered up my overcoat, cigars, and a sandwich, and crouched there,keeping out of the terrific wind as much as possible, watching fora possible vessel and munching the food with a growing wonder as towhether I should ever return to the happy home wherein it was prepared.
There I sat until sunset, and it was the latest sunset I have everobserved. With dusk descending over the lonely ocean, I returned insilence to Hawkins.
He was in bounding spirits. He chattered incessantly about the trip,planned a lecture tour--"Across the Atlantic in Forty Hours"--formed astock company to manufacture his motor, offered me the London agency atan incredible salary, and built a stately mansion just off Central Parkwith his own portion of the proceeds.
Having babbled himself dry, Hawkins informed me that salt air invariablymade him sleepy, and crawled into the cabin for slumber.
And he slept. It passed my understanding, but the man had such utterconfidence in himself and his unintentional trip that he snoredpeacefully throughout the night.
I didn't. I felt that my last hours in the land of the living should bepassed in consciousness, and I spent that terrible time of darkness inmore or less prayerful meditation.
After ages, the dawn arrived. I lit another cigar, and wriggled wearilyto the bow of the boat and scanned the waters.
There was a vessel! Far, far away, to be sure, but steaming so that wemust cross her path in another fifteen minutes.
I tore off my overcoat, scrambled to the little deck, wound one armabout a post, and waved the coat frantically.
Nearer and nearer we came to the steamer. More and more I feared thatthe signal might be unnoticed, or noticed too late. But it wasn't.
I have known some happy sights in my time, but I never saw anythingthat filled me with one-half the joy I felt on realizing that thesteamer-people were lowering one of their boats.
They were doing it, there was no doubt about the matter. In five minuteswe should be near enough to their cutter to swim for it.
I dived to the stern to awaken Hawkins.
He was already awake. He stood there, tousled and happy, sniffing thecrisp air, and he had seen the approaching boat.
"Got it ready?" he inquired, placidly.
"Got what ready?"
"Why, the message," exclaimed Hawkins, opening his eyes in astonishment."We'll have to hustle with it, I reckon."
"Hawkins, what new idiocy is this?" I gasped.
"Surely we're going to give that steamer a few lines to tell the worldabout our trip?"
Seconds passed, before the full, terrible significance of his wordsfiltered into my brain.
"Do you mean to say," I roared, "that you are not going to swim for thatboat?"
"Certainly I do mean to say it," he replied stiffly. "Let me have yourfountain pen, Griggs."
I took one glance at the boat. I took another at Hawkins. Then I grippedhim about the waist and threw my whole soul into the task of pitchinghim overboard.
Hawkins, as I have said, is heavier than I. He puffed and strained andpulled and hauled at me, swearing like a trooper the while. And neitherof us budged an inch.
The cutter came nearer, nearer, always nearer. Thirty seconds more andwe should shoot by it forever. The thought of losing this chance ofrescue almost maddened me.
I had just gathered all my strength for one last heave when the middleof my back experienced the most excruciating pain it has ever known.Something seemed to lift me clear of the launch, with Hawkins inmy arms; I heard a dull report from somewhere, and then we droppedtogether, right through the surface of the sparkling Atlantic Ocean!
Hawkins was picked up first. When I came to the surface, twodark-skinned sailormen were dragging him in, struggling and cursing andpointing wildly toward the horizon, where his launch was careering awaywith the speed of the wind.
It was the French liner La France which had the honor of our rescue. Shedeposited us in New York on Wednesday morning.
Over the rest of this tale hover some painful memories. I am not afighting man, but I am free to say that when my wife and Mrs. Hawkinsdelivered to me their joint opinion on broken promises, their sex alonesaved them from personal damage.
It was upon me that the blame appeared to rest entirely. At least,Hawkins didn't co
me in for any of it at the time.
Just at the moment of that emotional interview, Hawkins was busy in hiswork-shop--perfecting something.
It seems that the motor, after all, was our salvation. Hawkins says thatsome of the power must have dribbled out of the machine proper and blownthe steel dome from its foundations.
Assuredly there was plenty of energy behind the thing when it struck me;I have darting pains in that portion of my anatomy every damp day.
The launch has never been reported, which is probably quite as well.
Perhaps it has reached the open Polar Sea, and is butting itself intoflinders against the ice-cakes. Perhaps it is terrorizing some cannibaltribe in the southern oceans by inflicting dents on the shoreline oftheir island.
Wherever the poor little boat may be, it contains eleven of my bestcigars, the better part of a substantial meal, and, what is in my eyesof less importance, the sole existing example of what Hawkins stillconsiders an ideal generator of power.