CHAPTER VI
A Daring Venture
"I have it!" he exclaimed. "A way that two of us can win free with—and maybe all! A chance out of millions, with death at the end of it, maybe, but a chance to get Connell and his secret back!"
"But how?" I questioned. "How can two of us, even, get clear of this cell?"
"The guards!" he exclaimed excitedly. "The two guards that bring our food each dawn and dusk—if we can overpower them—"
"It's useless, Hilliard," I said. "Even if we did overpower them we could not pass the score of other guards in the corridor outside, or the scores of others on its lower floors."
"But listen," he appealed, and then, as he went on to detail to us the plan that he had devised, I felt some slight measure of hope rising within me, saw that dawning hope reflected in the faces of Connell and Macklin.
"It is a chance!" he exclaimed. "And if we can do it, if I can get back to our own land, it means a chance still for the American Federation! For the European and Asiatic Federations won't be starting their attack for another ten days or more, their preparations not finished till then, and in that time by bending every effort toward it our own engineers could put the new tube-propellers in all our American air-cities! Could make those cities able to meet the enemy cities, attack when it comes!"
So, with that foremost in mind, we swiftly decided that upon that very evening, when our guards brought our food at dusk, we would put the plan into operation, would stake everything upon it. For even if but two of us could escape by it, if Connell could be one of those two, and could get back across the Atlantic with his tremendous secret, it meant a fighting-chance for our Federation. And with that in mind the rest of us were willing to take all chances, to dare all risks. Risky enough the thing would be, we knew, all depending upon what occurred in one moment of rushing action, and numberless were the features of it that might go entirely wrong and ruin us. But we steeled ourselves with the thought of what would become of our Federation if we failed. And so ready and tense with resolution we waited for the coming of dusk.
To me, through the remaining hours of that day, it seemed that never had the sun sunk westward so slowly. From our window we could see all the activities that went on in the great air-city about us, could see far across all this great mass of towers and streets and thronging crowds which hung here miles in the air above the earth, and could see those activities lessening somewhat as the long shadows of sunset fell across narrow streets and smooth plazas. In the great plaza beneath, at the foot of that electrostatic tower in which we were imprisoned, there rested always a number of great cruisers of the European fleet, reporting to the First Air Chief there in the tower's base, and now with the approach of night other cruisers from the swarming masses above the city were slanting down to rest upon the plaza. And these cruisers we watched with intent gaze as the sunset's light declined.
Outside in the corridor we could hear the occasional movement of feet as the score of guards there moved about now and then, but heard not the approaching feet of the two that brought our food. What if they were not to come upon this evening? Or what if more than two, or less than two, were to come? Either contingency would be equally ruinous to our plan, and with the passing of each moment we sat in an increasing agony of expectation, Connell's eyes burning, Macklin as imperturbable as ever, Hilliard eager and tense. Then at last, when the shadows of dusk were falling across the great city of the air outside, were deepening in our little cell, we heard voices outside, the greetings of our guards in the corridor, and then a moment later the solid metal door of our cell had clicked open. Then into the cell stepped our two usual guards with our food, their heat-pistols ready as always in their right hands.
The eyes of one warily upon us, the other took both of the metal containers of synthetic food and reached to place them, as usual, upon the lower bunk-rack, at the room's right hand side. Macklin was lying upon that bunk-rack having stretched himself out as though sleeping. The rest of us were lounging at the cell's other side, the second guard's heat-pistol watchfully upon us while the first reached toward the bunk-rack to place the metal food-containers beside the supposedly-sleeping Macklin's head. But as he placed them there, as he began to turn away from it, Macklin's hands shot suddenly behind his head as he lay there and grasped the arm of the first guard in a single movement, jerking him toward the bunk-rack! Like lightning the second guard turned with his pistol toward that sudden movement and as he did so, forgetful for the instant of the rest of us, we three had leaped upon him! And then as Hilliard and I bore the second guard to the floor, wrenching the pistol from him, Macklin and Connell had jammed the first one against the cell's corner, with hand upon his mouth, and had him equally powerless!
The whole swift scene of action had taken but a flashing moment to carry out, and so lightning-like had been our movements, so careful above all had we been to gag with our hands the two guards as we grasped them, that no single sound save for a few low-choking gasps had come from them. And then, while with hands over their mouths and with all the strength of our muscles Hilliard and I held the two guards, Macklin and Connell were swiftly stripping their tight-jacketed green uniforms from them.
A moment more, and Connell and Macklin were swiftly doffing their own black uniforms of the American Federation and donning the green ones. Now came a restless movement of feet in the corridor without, and with the speed of utter necessity we took the two discarded black uniforms and forced them upon the two guards, holding them still voiceless and powerless. Then, that done, the two guards were as like in their black uniforms as Hilliard and myself; with Connell and Macklin, the latter having been chosen because of the similarity of his appearance to one of the guards, wearing now the guards' green uniforms. And now the very climax of our endeavor was come, that moment upon which depended all, for now, suddenly removing our hands from the lips of the two guards we held, we added our own sudden cries to theirs, and at the same moment Connell and Macklin, in their green uniforms, were engaging in a mock struggle with us and with our guards, whose din seemed terrific there in the quiet upper levels of the great tower!
Instantly as those cries arose there was a rush of feet outside and the score of guards there poured down the corridor and through the cell's door, to see four of us in black uniforms struggling apparently with two green-uniformed guards, who were in reality Connell and Macklin. It was the moment upon which all rested, and in that moment the score of guards acted as Hilliard had foreseen, gazing not in that wild moment of frenzied action at faces but at uniforms, seeing only in that first moment in the dusky cell four black-garbed men struggling with two green-garbed ones they had seen enter it but moments before. And, seeing this, they rushed upon us four black-uniformed ones, Hilliard and myself and the guards whom in the guise of aiding in the struggle we had held, and began to beat us back against the cell's end, totally forgetting in that moment the two green-uniformed men they were succoring! And in that moment, as they pressed us back, Connell and Macklin were stealing swiftly out of the cell, and down the corridor toward the hall of the cage-lifts!
For but a moment more did we struggle with our outnumbering opponents there, and then as they gripped and held the four of us helpless and jerked our heads up wild cries came from them as they saw the faces of us, saw that two of us were their own guards! Then the next moment, needing no other explanation of what had happened, they turned with their own black-garbed fellows, rushed out of the cell, slamming shut its door behind them, down the corridor and toward the cage-lifts after Connell and Macklin! We heard those cries re-echoed swiftly over all the mighty building, heard rushing feet and repeated calls on the levels of the great tower above and beneath us. And then, as we flung ourselves to our window, gazed downward, we saw in the next moment two green-garbed tiny figures issuing from the giant electrostatic tower's base far beneath us, running across the great plaza toward the nearest of the cruisers. They were Connell and Macklin!
I cried out with Hilliard hoarse words of encouragement, forgetful that none could hear from our terrific height, saw Connell and Macklin rushing up the slender gangplank in the cruiser's side and through its open door, saw that door slam shut behind them, just as from the base of the tower there poured out after them a flood of pursuing green-garbed figures. Those pursuers were raising their heat-pistols, and a hail of shining heat-cartridges were flying through the air toward the cruiser in the next moment, but as they shot toward it there came faintly up to us the droning of the ship's great motors and then with all the power of those motors in its vertical lifting tube-propellers it was rising upward, was lifting smoothly and swiftly upward toward us! And at the same moment the green-uniformed crowd of guards beneath were rushing across the plaza toward the other resting cruisers, were rushing within them to soar up after Connell and Macklin!
Up toward us shot the lifting cruiser of our two friends, though, up toward our little window, for such had been our plan by which two, escaping, might rescue the remaining two. But as it shot upward I looked down, saw beneath the scores of cruisers on the plaza rising now after it, heard through all the great tower and for far around it a great roar of rising shouts as the escape was discovered, saw the giant gleaming muzzles of the great batteries of heat-guns around the plaza turning swiftly upward on their pivots toward the rising cruiser of Connell and Macklin! And so the next moment as that cruiser shot up toward us, as I made out Macklin plain in its transparent-windowed bridge-room, driving it up toward us, I flung an arm outward from the tower to him, shouting in frenzied appeal.
"Back, Macklin!" I cried, with Hilliard crying too beside me. "No time to get us—back home with Connell, for God's sake!"
He saw my frenzied gesture westward, caught the meaning of my wild warning shout as the guns beneath swung toward him and the cruisers below rushed up, and I saw him hang there for a fraction of a moment irresolute, hesitating. Then the next moment, just as there came a swift-spreading thunder of detonations from the great heat-guns around the plaza he had whirled the wheel over and sent the great cruiser rushing away from the tower, sent it rushing westward through the dusk above the great air-city's gathered lights. In the next instant there shot through the air where it had been the shining heat-shells from beneath! And then as Macklin's cruiser rushed comet-like onward through the dusk the great heat-guns beneath were turning again toward it.
I cried out hoarsely as they thundered again, but with a whirl sidewise Macklin and Connell had evaded the rushing shells and were hurtling on. Now over all the great air-city, over all the mighty mass of Berlin was spreading a roar of alarm, and now the cruisers that had rushed up in pursuit were rocketing westward after that single fleeing one, the batteries beneath us holding their fire lest they strike their own pursuing ships. With our hearts pounding Hilliard and I saw that single little cruiser leap on, saw it shooting through the dusk until its gleaming shape was now far away from the great air-city, racing westward! Swiftly, though, the numberless pursuing cruisers were converging upon it, and then, as we strained our eyes to see the flying gleaming craft, there came a greater thundering of guns as all the suddenly-alarmed batteries at the air-city's westward edge loosed their shells upon the fleeing cruiser! That cruiser seemed to halt for a moment unaccountably, there was a great blinding flare that could be made only by heat-shells striking, and then the cruiser, the cruiser that held Macklin and Connell and all the American Federation's fate, was reeling blindly downward and out of sight, whirling lifelessly downward toward the earth far below!