CHAPTER XXII.
ON BOARD BARR'S SHIP.
"Do you surrender?" shouted a voice through a megaphone from the dirigible as it hovered above the stricken aeroplane.
"Yes, hornswoggle you," roared Ben Stubbs, "but if it hadn't been for that gas-bag of yours you'd never have got us, and I can lick any man aboard yer with my fists or any other weapon."
Luther Barr's men paid no attention to this outburst and the boys were too sick at heart at the complete failure of their venture even to hear Ben's words. Frank choked back his tears with difficulty and Harry gazed straight out over the sea.
It was defeat final and complete.
"Make fast the ladder and we'll board you," was the next hail as a trap in the under side of the dirigible was opened and a long rope ladder came snaking down.
Ben, although he would cheerfully have slashed it to bits with his sea knife, had no recourse but to make the end of the apparatus fast to the Golden Eagle's framework, and a few seconds later Malvoise came rapidly down it. To guard against any attack on him the men on the dirigible leaned over the rail and kept their rifles covering the boys and Ben.
"Hum, you saved us the trouble of packing up the treasure, I see," said Malvoise, his eyes sparkling as they fell on the sacks of treasure.
"If we'd only fixed you last night when you was in the air over the galleon we'd have done a good job," growled old Ben.
"Ah, you think so," grinned the Frenchman. "I don't doubt that it feels bad to be the conquered, but you must not grudge us the treasure, my dear Mr. Stubbs—"
The sneer on his face was unbearable and Ben started forward to fall upon him, but as he did so a bullet from above zipped down, narrowly missing his arm. In fact, it ploughed through his loose shirt-sleeve.
"You see, I am well protected," grinned the Frenchman, as Ben started back.
"Yes, I reckon we've got to give in with as good a grace as we can," grumbled Ben; "though I'd give all the treasure in them sacks to get my hands on you for just five minutes," he muttered to himself.
"Let down a tackle there, you," shouted Malvoise to the crew of the dirigible, "and you, Sanborn, come down aboard here. We must get the treasure on board before it starts to blow at all."
Sanborn came hastily scrambling down the ladder, and a few seconds later a block and tackle were lowered. Malvoise and Sanborn, who greeted the boys with a scowling sneer, first deprived the boys of their weapons and forced Ben to give up his revolver and then made fast the block and tackle to the first of the treasure sacks.
It was rapidly hauled up to the dirigible; the other treasure bags followed in the same manner. In half an hour the Golden Eagle was swept clean of the contents of the galleon's chests which the boys had loaded on her with such light hearts.
"Now, then, I guess we are all ready for a start," said Malvoise, when the last of the sacks had been hauled into the dirigible's cabin. "As a matter of fact," he went on, "I suppose I ought to leave you here, as you only will make a lot more weight in the air-ship, but I am more humane than that and I'll allow you to come on board. Up the ladder with you, and briskly now."
Ben went first, followed by the two boys; behind them came Malvoise.
"Come on, Sanborn," shouted the Frenchman to his companion, who still lingered on board the aeroplane.
"Wait a minute. I've got a job to do first. I want to sink the thing for all time," cried the other.
The boys, who had by this time gained the swaying deck of the dirigible, saw the treacherous mechanic deliberately draw a pistol and prepare to fire a hole in the pontoons, which would inevitably have sunk the gallant craft.
But as his finger pressed the trigger the man's foot slipped and he was dumped off the pontoon into the water.
His companions, far from being alarmed, shouted with laughter at his mishap, as Sanborn, cursing, prepared to climb back on to the Golden Eagle. But even as the oaths left his lips a change came over his face. It turned an ashen gray.
"Help!" he shouted.
"What's the matter?" roared Malvoise.
"Something is after me!" came the agonized cry of the man.
As the words left his lips a cry of horror broke from all on the dirigible's deck who were watching Sanborn's struggles.
A great arm, covered with mouths, like the ones the boys had seen absorb the rats, shot out of the sea. Another and another followed it, and hapless Sanborn, screaming in terror, was dragged from the structure of the aeroplane, to which he clung with a drowning man's clutch.
"It's a devil-fish," shouted the boys.
"Fire on the thing," shouted Malvoise, pouring the contents of his revolver down into the fleshy mass of the octopus.
Instantly a great cloud of inky fluid spread over the waters and into the opaque waves the waving arms sank, dragging with them to the depths of the sea the treacherous mechanic.
Shocked and sickened by the scene, the boys turned away and even Malvoise seemed powerfully affected. He hid his face in his hands as the wounded monster slowly sank without relinquishing its hold on its victim.
As for Constantio and a red-headed bushy-whiskered man, whom the boys learned later on was Sam Wells, one of the three men who helped in working the dirigible, they seemed completely unnerved by the sight they had witnessed. Malvoise's sharp voice recalled them to themselves.
"Come now, collect your wits," he shouted; "poor Sanborn's gone, and we can't save him. Cut loose from the aeroplane and haul up the rope-ladder. Constantio, you take the wheel. Wells, when you have got the ladder aboard, turn to and stow that stuff further aft."
He indicated the pile of treasure sacks.
Wells and two other men who had been standing about the deck instantly busied themselves obeying these orders. It was evident from their implicit obedience that Malvoise was master on the dirigible.
As the engine was set going and the ship forged ahead, leaving behind it the wrecked aeroplane and the watery grave of Sanborn, Malvoise called the boys' attention, in a half-joking way, to the damage Ben Stubbs' bullets had done to the gas-bag.
"However," he went on, "fortunately it does not make so much difference as it would in any other air-craft. After dinner I will send one of the crew aloft to put a patch on the hole and we can then re-inflate that section from one of the hydrogen tubes."
Precarious as their situation was, the boys, whose interest in aeronautics was a sort of ruling passion with them, could not but help being interested with the perfect working out of all details aboard Luther Barr's craft. After an excellent dinner, in which fresh meat and vegetables from a well-stocked ice-box formed the staples, they watched with interest the red-headed sailor, Wells, scramble up into the network of the bag and sew a patch over the bullet hole made by Ben Stubbs' shot. The patch affixed, it was coated with a water and gas-proof solution the sailor carried in a small pot suspended round his waist. After an interval allowed for drying, a cylinder of gas was dragged out of the after storeroom where they were kept, and the section which had been injured was refilled by means of its own inflation hose, which was provided with a nozzle adjustable to the mouth of the gas receptacle.
To the boys' surprise, when darkness fell the dirigible still forged ahead and no change of her course was observable. They had imagined that she was on her way to join Luther Barr at some nearby meeting-place, where the Brigand would take the treasure on board, but, so far, her navigators showed no intention of alighting.
At ten o'clock Malvoise stepped up to the three adventurers and said:
"It is a rule on board that all lights shall be extinguished at this hour. If you are ready for bed I will show you to your sleeping place."
He led the way to a small cabin fitted with two bunks and lounge. The boys wanted to ask a score of questions, but knew it would be useless, so remained silent.
"I wish you a good night's rest," said Malvoise as he switched on a tiny electric light with the warning that the dynamo would be cut off in ten minutes' time.
As he closed the cabin door behind him there was a sharp click.
The cabin door was fitted with a stout spring lock.
The adventurers were prisoners a thousand feet in the air.