"If you step another inch, down he goes!" roared one of the men.
"What shall we do?" wailed Mrs. Parke, wringing her hands.
While one of the men stood guard at the door that opened on the balcony, the other carried George around to the other side of the balcony. The moment George found but one man to hold him, he squirmed and wriggled so that he soon got out of the fellow's hold, and then he managed in some way to free his two hands.
The man tried to hold him again, but with his hands free George also managed to free his feet. Then he jumped up and defied the rascal. As the man turned to call his partner, George saw that the mayor had ordered an aeroplane from Governor's Island to rise and save him. Determined to hold off the two villains long enough to give the aviators time to reach the tower, George ran around and around the tower—the door leading to the balcony having been bolted on the outside by the villain on guard to keep help and friends from reaching George. Then, as the aeroplane almost flew over George's head, the men saw it and realized that they would soon lose their prize unless they could catch him again. So one of them planned to go one way, and the other the other way, and so catch George before he could be carried off.
Fortunately for George, an experienced aviator flew the machine, and as he swooped down in a graceful loop, he dropped a tackle out and caught George in the back of his pajamas. Just as the two men met in a swift run around the balcony and bumped together, they saw their victim lifted out of their grasp, and they jumped to catch hold of him.
But the plane was swiftly skimming over the city on its way to the hangars on Governor's Island. George never dared to move or even breathe for fear that the great hook would rip the madras of his pajama coat and so let him drop.
The aeroplane reached the water, however, and was speeding over the bay to the island, when George heard an ominous r-r-rip at his back. He tried to call to his friend, the aviator, to haul him up, but the madras kept right on tearing once it started, and just as George could see the aviation field on the island, and could feel the aeroplane rapidly descending, the material in the coat gave way entirely and down plunged the luckless George into the deep water.
The mayor had very thoughtfully ordered the whistles on the bay to blow, and many scows and other craft tied up for the night, showed lights or blew whistles. Just as the coat began tearing, a powerful searchlight, called the Sperry light, shot across the bay, and when George fell, a great chorus of steam-whistles started their warning signals to ferryboats and other ships that were still passing back and forth.
George felt himself going down, down into the water, but it was not as cold as he feared it might be. He soon bobbed up on the surface, and no sooner had his head appeared in the great flashing pathway of light shed on the bay, than a submarine shot past and a long arm lifted him out of the water and dragged him into the hold.
Down went the submarine, and George rubbed the salt water from his eyes to find himself a prisoner of some fierce-looking German pirates.