“We’ll start at once,” declared Tom. “Are you all aboard, and is everything loaded into the airship?”
“Everything, I guess.” answered Mr. Anderson.
Tom looked to the motor, saw that it was in working order, and shoved over the lever of the gas machine to begin the generating of the lifting vapor. To his surprise there was no corresponding hiss that told of the gas rushing into the bag.
“That’s odd,” he remarked. “Ned, see if anything is wrong with that machine. I’ll pull the lever again.”
The bank clerk stood beside the apparatus, while Tom worked the handle, but whatever was the matter with it was too intricate or complicated for Ned to solve.
“I can’t see what ails it,” he called to his chum. “You better have a peep.”
“All right, I’ll look if you work the handle.”
The passengers on the airship, which now rested in a little clearing in the dense jungle, gathered at the engine room door, looking at Tom and Ned as they worked over the machine.
“Bless my pulley wheel!” exclaimed Mr. Damon “I hope nothing has gone wrong.”
“Well something has!” declared the young inventor in a muffled voice, for he was down on his hands and knees peering under the gas apparatus. “One of the compression cylinders has cracked,” he added dubiously. “It must have snapped when we landed this last time. I came down too heavily.”