Chapter 23

BOMBED BY ROCKS

Our friends had landed in the lowlands just to the north of Colombo, whose scattered buildings contained upwards of a hundred thousand inhabitants, most of whom were native Singhalese, descendants of the colonists who came from the valley of the Ganges and settled the island five hundred years before the birth of Christ. To the southward arose the rocky headlands of the coast, and to the westward could be seen the somber peak of Pedrotallagalla, the highest mountain of the island. Numerous ships, some very crude and with queer sails, were in the harbor as the boys landed, and scores of natives in short skirts were loading and unloading these. Undoubtedly the huge square boxes which some of them carried aboard so easily upon their heads contained tea, for which Ceylon is famous.

The person in charge of the landing-field here was a Mr. Young, an American clergyman connected with the local Baptist mission. This tall gentleman came forward, accompanied by the British governor of the island, within a few moments after the flyers struck the ground. In fact, they were still stretching their cramped legs and arms when he greeted them and introduced the governor, Sir Henry Hurst.

"Young men, I am more than delighted to shake hands with you," said the governor. "It looks as if you and the other crew over yonder were upon an epoch-making tour, for you are not ten minutes behind your schedule, as we have it in the London papers and also in our own Colombian newspaper. My only regret is that you do not represent England instead of America." He laughed good-naturedly as he made the last remark.

"It was quite a task for the governor and myself to get up at this early hour to receive you, but the occasion is well worth the effort," observed Mr. Young, smiling. "Here we usually sleep very late, often as late as nine o'clock. Even the Singhalese and Burghers are not yet generally up from their beds, though those who work at the wharves have appeared. If you had arrived a few hours later there would be thousands of the population here to see you."

"We are well satisfied with the hour, then," said John. "The fewer natives we have around the Sky-Bird, the better we like it, both for working and taking off. How long has that other crew been in, sir?"

"Not more than a half-hour. They are taking on their fuel now, being assisted by a couple of Burghers. They advised us that they would probably remain here until noon, being tired from their long flight from Aden. I don't know; why, but the slender man with the dark skin and mustache particularly requested me to see that you knew this intention of theirs."

The flyers thought this was rather strange. Why should the _Clarion's_ crew remain so long in Colombo, when their interests in the race demanded as much time put into flying as possible? It was still more incomprehensible what object they would have in wishing the Sky-Bird's flyers to understand this intention, as by so doing our boys could make their plans to gain a heavy lead.

It was too much of a puzzle for them to work out, so Bob and Paul, aided by two Burghers (naturalized Europeans), went to work overhauling the machine and storing fuel, while John and Tom made their way into town with Sir Henry Hurst to transact their business. When they returned they found the two younger members of their crew in a heated discussion with the _Clarion_ fellows.

"What's the matter here, anyhow?" demanded John, as he and Tom pushed their way through the little ring of natives who had gathered about the principals.

"It's just this way," said Pete Deveaux, with a grin meant to be very cool and indifferent, although his eyes roved uneasily; "We fellows were working on our machine here, minding our own business, when these two kids of yours came up and demanded to know why we had played you dirty at Freetown and Kuka. They accused us of purposely carrying off your share of fuel at Freetown, and of stirring up the natives at Kuka so you couldn't make a safe landing."

"We simply couldn't stand keeping quiet any longer, John," put in Paul very heatedly. "We thought it a good time to have it out with these fellows for their crookedness."

"That's right; they're a bunch of snakes!" supported Bob, his cheeks red with excitement and anger, and his fists doubled menacingly.

John turned to the slouching figures of the rival crew. "Do you fellows deny these charges?" he asked quietly.

Crossman, Torrey, and Lane looked at their leader, merely shrugging their shoulders. Pete Deveaux took a quick glance in their direction, in turn. Then his face clouded a little darker, and he blurted out to his men: "You confounded babies, why don't you deny it? You know we didn't do anything on purpose to hold these guys back!"

"That's right; we sure didn't," said Sam Lane.

"Of course not," added Chuck Crossman.

"Wouldn't think of it," interjected Oliver Torrey.

Our boys were disgusted by the cringing attitude of Pete Deveaux's cronies. Two of them were larger than the Frenchman, yet they seemed to be afraid of him. John saw that nothing was to be gained at this time by continuing the argument, so he pulled his comrades away with this parting and significant warning to their rivals: "Well, Deveaux, we'll let this drop now; but we certainly hope that you will take pains to see that nothing more of so strongly a suspicious character occurs on this trip!"

Pete Deveaux snarled back some answer which they could not make out.

Our friends returned to the Sky-Bird. In a few minutes Bob, who had climbed on top of the fuselage to test the helium valves, came down and said: "Something new is going on over in our neighbor's yard, fellows. When I was up there I could see right over the natives' heads, and I noticed Chuck Crossman and Pete Deveaux hunting around the field till they found half-a-dozen rocks as big as a football, and they put these in the cabin of the _Clarion_. Wonder what on earth they intend to do with those?"

"It's too hard a nut for me to crack," answered John.

The others expressed equal inability to discern the purpose of their rivals, and the incident was soon forgotten.

But twenty minutes later the familiar roar of a revolving airplane propeller greeted their ears, and they were surprised to observe the _Clarion_ rising up over the field. They watched the machine until it had disappeared in the cloud mists to the east. Then they awoke.

All saw the game of their rivals now. By making the Sky-Bird's crew believe they did not intend to leave until noon, the latecomers would be inclined to take their time fitting up for the next hop, and this would give the _Clarion's_ party a chance to make a sudden exit and gain a good lead before the others could get under way.

There was no getting around it--Pete Deveaux was clever, if he were a rascal. This our friends had to admit to themselves, despite their dislike of the fellow. His methods of getting the best of them seemed to have no limit; and yet thus far they had been able to cling, by the hardest kind of work, right at his heels. This last trick was more honest strategy than Deveaux had exhibited before, and they could therefore admire it in that sense. They hoped that from now on his maneuvers might be as free from maliciousness.

But their rivals had not fooled them as badly as they thought. Our flyers had lost no time upon landing in refitting, and when they saw the _Clarion_ take off, they speeded up operations so fast that they were able to depart only fifteen minutes later.

Almost straight eastward they headed, bearing just a little to the southward, so as to strike Singapore on a bee-line. They hoped to reach this stop some time before dark, which would give them approximately twelve hours' flying time. Under ideal weather conditions, they could make the journey in considerably less time, but it was the season for the well-known monsoons of the Indian Ocean, and it was quite unlikely that they would be able to wing their way across the fourteen hundred odd miles of sea without encountering some of these deterrent trade-winds.

It took them just an hour to cross the island of Ceylon, and flying at about fifteen hundred feet, they winged their way out over the whitecaps of the ocean. To their unspeakable pleasure they found the winds not at all bad, and made good speed. Bob was at the throttle, Paul was observing, and John and Tom were sleeping.

They had been flying thus for perhaps two hours, when Paul saw that for which he had been keenly watching for some time. It was a faint black speck, like a tiny bird, against the blue of the heavens ahead of them. He continued to watch this silently, after calling his chum's attention to it, until, under an increase of speed, the Sky-Bird had drawn close enough for them to observe that it was what they suspected--an airplane.

In another hour they were near enough to recognize in it the unmistakable outlines of the _Clarion_. To all appearances their rivals had also observed them, and were crowding on power, for now they gained much slower. Yet they still continued to narrow the breach between them, steadily, rod by rod, and minute by minute. They could see that the _Clarion_ was not well handled, for she wavered in her flight considerably.

"They'd be wise if they'd throw those rocks out which they took aboard," commented Paul. "That might help them to fly steadier."

"They're flying all of a thousand feet higher than we are," said Bob. "We're going to pass under them, I think, in the next half-hour."

That was the way matters looked. The | _Clarion_ was riding high, and was so close by this time that the windows in her cabin could be made out. Against those panels of glass our friends felt sure some of the rival crew were even at that moment pressing anxious faces as they watched the Sky-Bird steadily creeping up on them.

It was such an auspicious moment that Paul went and aroused John and Tom, so that they could see the Sky-Bird overtake and pass her adversary. Those two worthies grumbled a whole lot for a few moments, being half asleep, but when they grasped the situation and saw the _Clarion_ just ahead, they were as much interested as anybody.

Slowly, surely the Sky-Bird overtook the rival machine. When it seemed her nose was almost up to the tail of the _Clarion_, they saw a movement in the bottom of the fuselage of the craft above them, where her trapdoor of glass was situated in the floor of the cabin. Then something gray streaked down through the air. It went whizzing by just in front of the Sky-Bird, and a few moments later plunged into the sea with a great splash.

"Huckleberry pie!" ejaculated Tom Meeks, "one of their rocks has burst through their floor trap. Say, that was a close call for us!"

"Watch out! Here comes another!" cried Paul, as a second gray missile went by them on the other side.

Barely had it struck the waters beneath, when a third rock came so close that they could feel the rush of air as it passed downward. It was as if they were being bombarded by an enemy above, who used great stones instead of explosives. Their faces paled when the truth struck them like a thunderbolt. With calm deliberation, deadly intent, and a skill born of dropping bombs on targets during the war, some of the fellows in the machine above were trying to wreck the Sky-Bird with the rocks they had gathered in the field back in Ceylon!

"Quick, Bob!" cried John to their pilot. "Swerve out from under these devils as fast as you can! If another stone comes down here, it may--"

The words he intended to say never were uttered. At that very moment another gray object streaked its way down through the heavens, whirling uglily. They thought sure it would strike the cabin roof and crash through, and intuitively they cowered back in the corners for protection.

But their speed carried the stone farther to the rear. There was a tearing, rending sound.

Their faces blanched. And then Bob called out: "Hi, fellows, something's gone wrong! The Sky-Bird's bound to put her nose into the sea. The tail elevators don't work!"