第31章

SNAPPING AN AVALANCHE

"Bless my thermometer!" gasped Mr.Damon."This is terrible!" The airship was plunging and swaying about in the awful gale."Can't something be done, Tom?""What has happened?" cried Mr.Nestor."We were on a level keel before.What is it?""It's the automatic balancing rudder!" answered Tom."Something has happened to it.The wind may have broken it! Come on, Ned!" and he led the way to the engine room.

"What are you going to do? Don't you want Koku to shift the deflecting rudder? Here he is," Ned added, as the giant came forward, in response to a signal bell that Tom's chum had rung.

"It's too late to try the deflecting rudder!" tried Tom."I must see what is the matter with our balancer." As he spoke the ship gave a terrific plunge, and the occupants were thrown sideways.The next moment it was on a level keel again, scudding along with the gale, but there was no telling when the craft would again nearly capsize.

Tom looked at the mechanism controlling the equalizing and equilibrium rudder.It was out of order, and he guessed that the terrific wind was responsible for it.

"What can we do?" cried Ned, as the airship nearly rolled over."Can't we do anything, Tom?""Yes.I'm going to try.Keep calm now.We may come out all right.This is the worst blow we've been in since we were in Russia.Start the gas machine full blast.I want all the vapor I can get."As I have explained the Flyer was a combined dirigible balloon and aeroplane.It could be used as either, or both, in combination.At present the gas bag was not fully inflated, and Tom had been sending his craft along as an aeroplane.

"What are you going to do?" cried Ned, as he pulled over the lever that set the gas generating machine in operation.

"I'm going up as high as I can go!" cried Tom."If we can't go down we must go up.I'll get above the hurricane instead of below it.Give me all the gas you can, Ned!"The vapor hissed as it rushed into the big bag overhead.Tom carried aboard his craft the chemicals needed to generate the powerful lifting gas, of which he alone had the secret.It was more powerful than hydrogen, and simple to make.The balloon of the Flyer was now being distended.

Meanwhile Tom, with Koku, Mr.Damon and Mr.Nestor to help him, worked over the deflecting rudder, and also on the equilibrium mechanism.But they could not get either to operate.

Ned stood by the gas machine, and worked it to the limit.But even with all that energy, so powerful was the wind, that the Flyer rose slowly, the gale actually holding her down as a water-logged craft is held below the waves.Ordinarily, with the gas machine set at its limit the craft would have shot up rapidly.

At times the airship would skim along on the level, and again it would be pitched and tossed about, until it was all the occupants could do to keep their feet.Mr.Damon was continually blessing everything he could remember.

"Now she's going!" suddenly cried Ned, as he looked at the dials registering the pressure of the gas, and showing the height of the airship above the earth.

"Going how?" gasped Tom, as he looked over from where he was working at the equilibrium apparatus."Going down?""Going up!" shouted Ned."I guess we'll be all right soon!"It was true.Now that the bag was filled with the powerful lifting gas, under pressure, the Flyer was beginning to get out of the dangerous predicament into which the gale had blown her, Up and up she went, and every foot she climbed the power of the wind became less.

"Maybe it all happened for the best," said Tom, as he noted the height gage."If we had gone down, the wind might have been worse nearer the earth."Later they learned that this was so.The most destructive wind storm ever known swept across the southern part of Europe, over which theywere flying that night, and, had the airship gone down, she would probably have been destroyed.But, going up, she got above the wind- strata.Up and up she climbed, until, when three miles above the earth, she was in a calm zone.It was rather hard to breathe at this height, and Tom set the oxygen apparatus at work.

This created in the interior of the craft an atmosphere almost like that on the earth, and the travelers were made more at their ease.Getting out of the terrible wind pressure made it possible to work the deflecting rudder, though Tom had no idea of going down, as long as the blow lasted.