Round the World in Seven Days

"Tenez! up! up! Ah ?a! A clean shave, mister, hein?"

A touch on the lever had sent the aeroplane soaring aloft at a steep angle, and she cleared by little more than a hair's breadth the edge of a thick plantation of firs.

"A close shave, as you say, Roddy," came the answer. And then the speaker let forth a gust of wrathful language which his companion heard in sympathetic silence.

Lieutenant Charles Thesiger Smith, of H.M.S. Imperturbable, was normally a good-tempered fellow, and his outburst would have deceived nobody who knew him so well as Laurent Rodier.

It was the dusk of an evening in mid spring. Above, the sky was clear, washed by the rain that had fallen without intermission since early morning. Below, the chill of coming night, acting on the moisture-laden air, had covered the land with a white mist, that curled and heaved beneath the aeroplane in huge waves. It looked like a billowy sea of cotton-wool, but the airmen who had just emerged from it, had no comfort in its soft embrace. Their eyes were smarting, they drew their breath painfully, and little streams of water trickling from the soaked planes made cold, shuddering streaks on their faces and necks.

An hour ago they had sailed by Salisbury spire, calculating that a few minutes' run, at two or three miles a minute, would bring them to their destination on the outskirts of Portsmouth. But a few miles south the baffling mist had made its appearance, and Smith found himself bereft of landmarks, and compelled to tack to and fro in utter uncertainty of his course. He was as much at a loss as if he were navigating a vessel in a sea-fog. To sail through the mist was to incur the risk of striking a tree, a chimney, or a church steeple; to pursue his flight above it in the deepening dusk might carry him miles out of his way, and though a southerly course must presently bring him to the sea, he could not tell how far east or west of his intended landing-place. Meanwhile the petrol was running short, and it was clear that before long his dilemma would be solved by the engine stopping, and bringing him to the ground willy-nilly, goodness knows where.

This was vexing enough, but in the particular circumstances it was a crowning stroke of misfortune. To-day was the twenty-first of his twenty-eight days' leave: to-morrow he was to begin a round of what he called duty visits among his relatives; he would have to motor, play golf, dance attendance on girls at theatres and concerts, and spur himself to a thousand activities that he detested. There was no escape for him. Perhaps he could have faced this seven days' penance more equably if he had had the recollection of three well-employed weeks to sweeten it. Even this was denied him. Ever since he came on leave the weather had been abominable: high wind, incessant rain, all the elements conspiring to prevent the enjoyment of his hobby. Rodier had suggested that he should apply for an extension of leave, but Smith, though he did not lack courage, could not screw it to this pitch. He remembered too vividly his interview with the captain when coming off ship.

"Don't smash yourself up," said the captain, "and don't run things too fine. You're always late in getting back from leave. Last time you only got in by the skin of your teeth, when we were off shooting, too. If you overstep the mark again you'll find yourself brought up with a round turn, you may take my word for it."

"I couldn't beg off after that," he said to Rodier. "Anyway, it's rotten bad luck."

"Précisément ca!" said Rodier sympathetically.

For some little time they sailed slowly on, seeking in vain for a rift in the blanket of mist: then Rodier cried suddenly-

"Better take a drop, mister. In three minutes all the petrol is gone, and then-"

"I'm afraid you're right, Roddy, but goodness knows what we shall fall on. We must take our chance, I suppose."

He adjusted the planes, so as to make a gradual descent while the engine still enabled him to keep way on the machine, and it sank into the mist. Both men kept a sharp look-out, knowing well that to encounter a branch of a tree or a chimney-stack might at any moment bring the voyage, the aeroplane, and themselves to an untimely end. All at once, without warning, a large dark shape loomed out of the mist. Smith instantly warped his planes, and the machine dived so precipitately as almost to throw him from his seat. Next moment there was a shock; he was flung headlong forward, and found himself sprawling half suffocated on a damp yielding mass, which, when he had recovered his wits, he knew to be the unthatched top of a hayrick.

His first thought was for the aeroplane. Raising himself, and dashing the clinging hay wisps from his face, he shouted-

"Is she smashed, Roddy?"

"Ah, no, mister," came the answering cry. "She stick fast, and me also."

Smith crawled to the edge of the rick and dropped to the ground. Two or three dogs were barking furiously somewhere in the neighbourhood. A few steps brought him to the aeroplane, lying in a slanting position between the hayrick and a fence, over which it projected. Rodier had clung to his seat, and had suffered nothing worse than a jolting.

"This is a pretty mess," said Smith despairingly, "one end stuck fast in the hayrick, the other sticking over the fence: they'll have to pull it down before we can get her out. Get off, you brute!" he exclaimed, as a dog came yapping at his legs.

"Seize him, Pompey: seize him, good dog!" cried a rough voice.

"Call him off, or I'll break his head," cried Smith in exasperation.

"You will, will you?" roared the farmer. "I'll teach you to come breaking into my yard: I'll have the law of you."

"Don't be absurd, man," replied Smith, fending off the dog as well as he could. "Don't you see I've had an accident?"

"Accident be jiggered!" said the farmer. "You don't come breaking into my yard by accident. Better stand quiet or he'll tear you to bits."

"Oh, come now!" said Smith. "Look at this. Here's my aeroplane, fixed up here. You don't suppose I came down here on purpose? I lost my way in this confounded mist, and don't know where I am. Just be sensible, there's a decent chap, and get some of your men to help us out. I'll pay damages."

"I'll take care of that," said the farmer curtly. "What the country's coming to I don't know, what with motors killing us on the roads and now these here airyplanes making the very air above us poison to breathe. There ought to be a law to stop it, that's what I say. Down, Pompey! What's your name, mister?"

Smith explained, asking in his turn the name of the place where he had alighted. Farmer Barton was a good patriot, and the knowledge that the intruder was a navy-man sensibly moderated his truculence.

"Why, this be Firtop Farm, half-a-mile from Mottisfont station, if you know where that is," he said. "Daze me if you hain't been and cut into my hayrick!" He sniffed. "And what's this horrible smell? I do believe you've spoilt the whole lot with your stinking oil." He was getting angry again.

"Well, I've said I'll pay for it," said Smith impatiently. "Get your men, farmer, or I shan't be home to-night. I suppose I can get some petrol somewhere about here?"

"You might, or you might not, in the village; I can't say. My men are abed and asleep, long ago. You'll have to bide till morning."

"Oh well, if I must, I must. Roddy, just have a look at the machine and see that she's safe for the night. I'll run down to the station and send a wire home, and then get beds in the village."

"Better be sharp, then," said the farmer. "You can't send no wire after eight, and it's pretty near that now. I'll show you the way."

Smith hurried to the station and despatched his telegram; then, learning that there was a train due at 8.2 from Andover, he decided to wait a few minutes and get an evening paper. An aviation meeting had just been held at Tours, and he was anxious to see how the English competitors had fared. The train was only a few minutes late. Smith asked the guard whether he had brought any papers, and to his vexation learnt that, there being no bookstall at Mottisfont, there were none for that station. However, the guard himself had bought a paper before leaving Waterloo.

"Take it and welcome, sir," he said. "I've done with it. You're Lieutenant Smith, if I'm not mistaken. Seen your portrait in the papers,' sir."

"Thanks, guard," said Smith, pressing a coin into his reluctant hand.

"Englishmen doing well in France, sir. Hope to see you a prize-winner one of these days. Goodnight!"

The train rumbled off, and Smith scanned the columns by the light of a platform lamp. He read the report of the meeting in which he was interested: a Frenchman had made a new record in altitude; an Englishman had won a fine race, coming in first of ten competitors; a terrible accident had befallen a well-known airman at the moment of descending. The most interesting piece of news was that a Frenchman had maintained for three hours an average speed of a hundred and twenty miles.

"I'm only just in time," said Smith to himself. He was folding the paper when his eye was caught by a heading that recalled the days of his boyhood, when he had revelled in stories of savages, pirates, and the hundred and one themes that fascinate the ingenuous mind.

SHIPWRECKED AMONG CANNIBALS.

TERRIBLE SITUATION OF FAMOUS SCIENTIST.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

BRISBANE, Thursday.

A barque put in here to-day with four men picked up from an open boat south of New Guinea, who reported that the Government survey vessel Albatross has run ashore in a storm on Ysabel Island, one of the Solomon group. The crew and passengers, including Dr. Thesiger Smith, the famous geologist, were saved, but the vessel is a complete wreck, and the unfortunate people were compelled to camp on the shore. They are very short of provisions, and being practically unarmed are in great danger of being massacred by the natives, who are believed to be one of the fiercest cannibal tribes in the South Sea.

Four of the crew put off in the ship's boat to seek assistance, but they lost their mast and had to rely on the oars, and drifted for several days before being picked up in the Coral Sea. A gunboat will be despatched immediately, but since it cannot reach the island for at least five days, it is greatly to be feared that it will arrive only to find that help has come too late.

Smith ran his eyes rapidly over the lines, then folded the paper, and put it into his pocket. He did not notice that his hand was trembling. The station-master looked curiously after him as he strode away with set face.

"Seems to have had bad news," he said to his head porter.

"Bin plungin' on a wrong un, maybe," replied the porter.

Smith left the station, and hastened down the road towards the farm. He had clean forgotten his intention of bespeaking beds in the village; indeed, he walked as one insensible to all around him until he caught sight of the word GARAGE, painted in large white letters, illuminated by an electric lamp, over a gateway at the side of the road. Then he swung round and, passing through the gate, came to a lighted shed where he found a man cleaning a motor car.

"Any petrol to be got here?" he asked quickly.

"As much as we're allowed to keep, sir," replied the man.

"Send a can at once to Firtop Farm, down the road."

He turned, and was quitting the shed when a word from the man recalled him.

"Beg pardon, sir, but-"

"Oh, here's your money," cried Smith, handing him a crown-piece. "Be quick. By the way, can you lend me two or three men for half-an-hour or so at five shillings an hour?"

"Right you are, sir," was the reply. "I'm one; I'll get you a couple more in no time. Be there as soon as you, sir."

Smith hurried away. On reaching the farm he found that Rodier and the farmer were engaged in a friendly conversation, by the light of a carriage lamp which flickered wanly in the mist.

"Wonderful machine, sir," said the farmer, whom Rodier had talked out of his ill-humour. "Your man has been showing me over it, as you may say, leastways as well as he could in this fog."

"We must get her out at once," rejoined Smith. "Some men are coming up. We must get on to-night."

"Good sakes! that's impossible. She lies right athwart the fence, and you'll have to rig a crane to lift her."

"The fence must come down. I'll pay."

"But drat it all-"

"Look here, farmer, it's got to be done. Here are the men; just oblige me by showing them a light at the fence, and set them to take down enough of it to free the aeroplane-carefully; I don't want it smashed. There's a sovereign on account; you shall have a cheque for the rest when you send in the bill."

Apparently the magic touch of gold reconciled the farmer to these hasty proceedings, for he made no more ado, but took the lamp and bade the three men to follow him.

"What's wrong, mister?" asked Rodier. "You look as if you had been shocked."

Smith drew the paper from his pocket, gave it to Rodier, and then, striking a match, showed him the paragraph, and lighted more matches while he read it.

"Mon dieu!" ejaculated the Frenchman, when he was halfway through. "It is your father!"

"Yes; my brother is with him. I must get home; it will kill my mother if she sees this."

Rodier read the paragraph to the end.

"My word, it is bad business," he said. "These cannibals!... And they have no arms. What horror!"

Smith left him abruptly and walked to the fence to see how the work of dismantling it was proceeding. Rodier whistled, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, sat down on a bag of straw and appeared to be deep in a brown study. Sounds of hammering came from the fence; a light breeze was scattering the mist, and he could now see clearly the three men under the farmer's direction carefully removing the fencing beneath the aeroplane. Rodier watched them for a few minutes, but an onlooker would have gathered the impression that his thoughts were far away.

Suddenly he sprang up, muttering, "Ah! On peut le faire, quand même. Courage, mon ami!" and hastened to rejoin his employer.

"What distance, mister," he said, "from here to there-to the cannibals?"

"Thirteen thousand miles, I suppose, more or less."

"Ah!" the Frenchman's face fell. "Thirteen thousand!" he repeated, then was silent for a while, touching his brow as if making some abstruse calculation. Smith turned away.

"Ah! Qu'importe?" cried Rodier, after a few moments. "On peut le faire!"

He hastened to Smith, drew him aside, and spoke rapidly to him for a few moments. The look of doubt that first came to Smith's face was soon replaced by a look of confidence. He engaged in a hurried colloquy with his man, at the close of which they shook hands heartily and went to the fence to lend a hand there.

In half-an-hour the work was done; the fence was down, and the six men carefully dragged and lifted the aeroplane over the débris, and placed it on the road outside. While Rodier made a rapid examination of it, to see that no damage had been done, Smith got the men to empty into the tank the can of petrol they had brought, paid them for their work, and handed his card to the farmer.

"Send in your bill," he cried. "Ready, Roddy?"

"All right, mister."

They jumped into their seats. Smith called to the men to stand clear, and pulled the lever. At the same moment Rodier switched on the searchlight. The propellers flew round with deafening whirr; the aeroplane shot forward for thirty or forty yards along the road, then rose like a bird into the air.

The men stood with mouths agape as the machine flew over the tree-tops, its light diminishing to a pin-point, its clamour sinking to the quiet hum of a bee, and then fading away altogether. In a minute it had totally disappeared.

"Daze me if ever I seed anything like that afore," said the farmer. "A mile a minute, what?"

"More like two," said the motorman. "I lay she'll be in Portsmouth afore I'm half-a-mile up road. Good-night, farmer, I'm off to the Three Waggoners."

"Bust if I don't go, too. There be summat to wet our whistles on to-night, eh, men?"

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