“By jingo!” cried Croft, “that’s that cussed balloon! Look here,” exclaimed the fugitive, “I’ll give anyone on board a fiver for a loaded rifle.”
“My crew no fight or ve may get into trouble,” cried the skipper. “Pere-haps dat is a varbalon from my contree, it come dat vay from the east.”
“I know where it comes from, skipper,” cried Croft. “If I only had a gun—”
“Here you are, monsieur,” said a fierce-looking fellow, who did not look like one of the crew. “It is fully loaded. And I say,” he added in an undertone, “I am taking explosives to Paris for the glorious Anarchist cause. Will one of our little dynamite bons-bons suit you?”
“Yes, brother of my heart,” said Croft, “and if you can chuck it up high enough, your fortune is made, but don’t blow yourself up in a vain attempt that will fail. After all, it would be safer to trust to ordinary firearms rather than these new-fangled concerns.”
On hearing this conversation, Trigger at once loaded the guns, handing the air-gun to Mr Goodall, who was intent on thinking out a plan to check the skipper from putting his helm up and so avoiding the balloon.
Harry Goodall’s idea was to lower their grapnel a few feet and give it a pendulum-like swing so that it should stand a better chance, by describing a larger area, of coming in contact with the spars and rigging.
“I’m afraid, sir,” said Trigger, “there will be bloodshed.”
“Well, we must avoid it if possible, Tom,” replied his master.
“Don’t kill Croft,” said the detective; “I want particularly to take him alive.”