Joe and I rushed in first of all and pulled Alfonso out of the wreck. He was insensible and bleeding profusely from a cut across the forehead. Others eagerly took the boy from us and carried him below, his father sobbing that his son was dead, dead, dead! and now could never become the president of Colombia.
I knew well enough Alfonso wasn’t dead, and told Lucia so when she asked me with a white, startled face.
“A little damaged, that’s all,” said I, and watched her as she hurried away, womanlike, to render what assistance she could.
“It were surely wonderful!” cried Uncle Naboth, viewing the mangled biplane that lay at the foot of the mast; “but he’s spoilt his flying machine the first trip.”
“Oh, I’m not at all sure about that,” I replied. “What do you think, Joe?”
“Why, it’s like Alfonso—a little damaged, that’s all,” he answered with a grin. “The motor seems all right, and that’s the main thing.”
We made an examination, then, and found some of the framework of the planes splintered. Otherwise nothing was injured and a little work would soon restore the thing to good working order.
Bryonia and “Capstan Bob,” the latter having been a poor doctor before he became a good sailor, attended the injured boy, and soon word came up that Alfonso had regained consciousness. He had broken his left arm and cut his scalp open, but was not seriously injured. Late in the afternoon he asked to see me, and when I went down to his room I found him quite cheerful over his personal mishap, but worried about the condition of his biplane. This I assured him could easily be repaired, and he told me there was a supply of extra frames in one of the boxes, and asked me to look after the airship and rig it up again.
“I want to make another trip in it as soon as I am able,” he told me. “This broken arm is an unfortunate thing, but I guess I can manage the wheel with my right hand. Are you sure the motor is uninjured?”
“It worked smoothly when I tested it,” I answered; “but I’ll go over it again more carefully and make sure.”