“Quick Mr. Deane!” he called out. “We are friends—friends from your people.”
Startled and confused at the suddenness of the waking up, the pillar sentinel sprang to his feet. He seemed about to rush towards the grating in the roof to sound an alarm.
“Look, look,” continued Dave, rapidly, producing the picture of Edna Deane. “It is your sister! She sent this as a token! Quick, now!”
“Dave, make haste!” called out Hiram, sharply. “There’s something wrong!”
The young airman almost dragged the bewildered captive across the roof. He acted in a great hurry, for something had emphasized Hiram’s warning cry. A series of yells rang through the grating in the roof. Beyond it a man was dancing up and down in frantic state of excitement.
The pilot of the Comet at once decided that this must be some watchman or sentinel. He had discovered the arrival of the airship. Now he was shouting out the news of his discovery, probably to others within the structure.
Another cause of alarm was an incipient blaze directly on the roof. The lamp that the wing of the biplane had overturned had spilled its contents. The oil had ignited, some rugs had taken fire, and the blaze had caught a canopy near by. The Comet itself was menaced by the rising blaze. Dave reached the machine and gave rapid orders to his assistants.
“Get in, quick!” he directed his companion, but the rescued captive was too overcome to act for himself. Hiram helped pull him over into his own seat, vacating this and getting into the storage space behind it.
Dave got to the pilot post at once, and glanced back. Elmer was flapping back the encroaching flames with a robe. Just then the grating in the roof was unlocked. Up through it came a dozen native guards.
But for the fact that these men were so startled at the unusual scene presented to them, the Comet and its passengers might never have left the mystic city of Lhassa. Thrown off their mental balance by a sight of the unfamiliar machine, the guards stood staring helplessly about and then rushed forward to extinguish the fire on the roof.