“But it muss not—it muss not! Surely ze Photographic Sensitizer Preparation Number Six vill not fail? Schlagintwert’s preparations never fail; zat is ze foundation of zair business.”
“No; the preparation is all right; it’s the engine.”
“Ach! it should have been made in Jarmany! But, tell me true, Mr. Dorrell, are ve in danger?”
“The truth is, Mr. Schwab, that I can’t guarantee the machine for another ten miles.”
“Ach! Vat vill I become? Vat vill Schlagintwert’s become! Vy did you bring me in zis bad-made airship from my captivity? If you zere had left me, our Kaiser who is in Berlin vould have sent a telegram to ze Sultan of Marokko, and zen ve should see somezink. Zere had I at least enough to eat.”
“Confound it!” cried Tom, thoroughly exasperated. “We came to fetch Sir Mark Ingleton, not you. But for you we should have been halfway home to England by this time; and but for your weight, we shouldn’t have been in this pretty mess at all.”
Schwab’s jaw fell. This was an aspect of the matter that had not occurred to him. Lifting his waistcoat, and looking down, he said slowly—
“Truly I vish I had not eaten so much biscuit!”
It was now getting dark. Tom steered towards a bit of rough country to the north, again some points out of his course, his object being to worry the pursuers as much as possible and to draw them away from the line of Abdul’s flight. With great satisfaction he saw them follow. After scattering over a wide area in search of the fugitive whose disappearance had so much puzzled them, they had again formed a compact body, and pursued the airship in the belief that their quarry must still be within touch of it. In a few more minutes they were obliterated by the darkness; but the sky was starry, and while on the ground they were invisible from above, it was probable that the airship was still visible to them.
Tom had noticed for some time past that the wind, which had been slight and for the most part in his favour during the day, was shifting, and blowing with greater force. In the circumstances the airship was making very little headway, and Tom’s anxieties were further increased when his sense of smell apprised him that the engines were again becoming overheated. Even if the airship were out of sight, the pursuers would probably still hear the whirring of the propellers, and it was advisable, both for the sake of cooling the machinery and of depriving the enemy of a clue, that the airship should once more be brought to the ground. But it was with some trepidation that Tom allowed it to sink. He chose a spot just beyond a stretch of woodland from which it was scarcely possible that the vessel could have been seen. He could only hope that the sound had not been heard.