"COLD-BLOODED PIRACY IN THE HIGH AIR"

Pilot-commander Pring was a tall, lean, lantern-jawed officer, who, though of English nationality, had spent most of his life in America.

His face was still pale and grim with pa.s.sion and mortification as I closed the door of my private room at the A.P. Station on him, Mr. Van Adams, the multi-millionaire, and Mr. Rickaby, second officer of the _Albatros_.

"Now, gentlemen, sit down, please," I said. "And I will ask Captain Pring a few questions. Sir Joshua Johnson has given me the main facts, but I want details. I won"t detain you long, but I felt I ought to see you before anyone else."

"Oh, quite!" said Mr. Van Adams, a fleshy man, with a watchful eye and a jaw like a pike.

"This is an extraordinary affair, Captain Pring," I went on. "But, thank goodness, you haven"t lost your ship, or any lives. I know what you feel about the _Albatros_."

"She is father, mother, brother, sister, hired girl and dog under the waggon to me!" said Pring, and then he blazed up into fury. I disentangle the few words I can. The majority were too overdressed for respectable society.

"... His Majesty"s Mails! First time in history of flying, and it"s happened to ME! Cold-blooded piracy in the High Air! They"d have blown us to pieces as soon as look at us! When I get hold of that slime-lapping leper, the pirate skipper, I won"t leave him hide or hair to cover the wart he calls his heart! ..." and so on, for a good two minutes by the office chronometer.

I let him rip. It was the quickest way. It"s dangerous to throttle down a man like Pring.

"The Captain is, naturally, furious," I said.

"Oh, quite!" answered Mr. Van Adams.

Then we got to business. "The strange airship, Captain Pring. Let"s begin with that. She approached you flying _West_, I understand?"

"She did, Sir John. Does that put you wise to anything?"

"It would appear that she was coming from Europe. But that was probably a trick. She might have been waiting about for hours."

"Curious thing, then, that all the ships in the air during the last thirty hours that were within fifteen hundred miles of the American and Canadian coast never saw anything of her. The Air Police of the U.S.A.

have questioned every registered boat, Transatlantic and coastal trade, and not one of them sighted her. And, as you know, Sir John, from Cape Race to Charleston in summer weather the air"s as thick with craft as gnats over a pond. Ain"t that so, Mr. Van Adams, sir?"

"Quite, Captain Pring."

"I see your inference. Well, we"ll leave that for a moment. I understand that there were some peculiar features about this ship. What were they?"

"She"s the fastest thing in the air, bar none. That I can swear to. A pilot of my experience can"t well be deceived, and if that ship--she"s one of the very few I"ve seen with four propellers--can"t do two hundred and forty miles an hour, _without a following wind, mind_, then I"m a paretic!"

I whistled. Such speeds had been dreamed of but never known. "Nearly three times hurricane velocity!" I said.

"She"d race the dawn, Sir John! and that"s my honest belief. There"s never been such a flying boat before. And she don"t carry a crew of more than twelve or fifteen men, in my opinion. The rest"s all engines and petrol. She ain"t more than twice the size of one of your patrol ships, all over."

This was talking! Each moment the affair grew more tense and interesting.

"That narrows our field of search no end," I remarked. "A boat like that can"t be built anywhere in the world without leaving traces."

"It colours the cat different, sure," said Captain Pring. "Now, here"s another point. Gum! I"m going to startle you some more, Sir John, but, as G.o.d sees me, I"m speaking truth. Here"s Mr. Rickaby here as"ll swear to all I say...."

He looked at the second officer, a good-looking, brown-faced lad. "It"s all gospel, Sir John," he broke in.

"Of course," I said impatiently, "I know you couldn"t be mistaken, Pring, and I won"t insult you by thinking you"d pull a Chief Commissioner"s leg over an affair of this importance. What"s number two?

Let"s have it!"

"The man who runs her, or the man who built her, has solved another problem. He"s produced silent engines at last! That ship"s motors don"t make more noise than a June bug! On a dark night she could pa.s.s within two hundred yards of you, and you"d never guess that she was near."

From that moment I saw the thing in its true proportions. From that moment the air became unsafe. A man-eating tiger let loose upon a quiet country-side was not a t.i.the as dangerous.

The three other men saw that I understood.

"The scoundrels who came aboard the _Albatros_ and looted the ship.

What of them?"

"They were masked so"s their mothers wouldn"t, have known "em. Armed to the teeth, too. We"d have downed them quick enough, even at the cost of a life or two, but there was the pirate with a four-inch gun trained on us. And she meant business. I did right, Sir John?"

The poor fellow"s voice shook, and his face was corrugated with anxiety.

"I should have done exactly the same myself under the circ.u.mstances, Pring. Your first duty was to the women and children under your care.

That view, I am certain, will be accepted by the company and the Government, to say nothing of the public, when it gets out. About these men, again, did you judge them to be American or foreigners?"

"They didn"t speak much, except, to give a few orders. But what they _did_ say I heard, every word. I was with them all the time, and so was Mr. Rickaby here. I"ll spring another surprise on you, Sir John, and then I"ve done. _Those chaps were English, every one of them._ And, what"s more, they weren"t any plug-ugly crowd neither! They were educated men of some social position, club men at some time or other, or I"m a short sport!"

The second officer spoke. "Captain Pring is perfectly right, sir," he said modestly. "I"ll swear that they had been public school or "Varsity men at some time or other."

"Where were you?" I asked quickly.

"Harrow, sir."

I nodded. Here was another astounding fact for consideration when I was alone.

"And then, after a time," Pring continued, "the _Sant Iago_ tramp steamer freighter came up from way down South and rescued us. After that we sighted the lights of Mr. Van Adams" air yacht, the _May Flower_, and in answer to our signal he came down and took me and Rickaby aboard."

"Quite," said the laconic millionaire.

"To-night, Captain Pring, I shall want a long talk with you. Now I must surrender you to Sir Joshua. For the present, I want you all three to give me your words of honour that you will tell no one at all anything about the appearance or speed of the ship, that her engines were silent, or you suspect the ruffians on her to be English. That is most important. In fact, I must make it an order, under the powers with which I am invested by the Secretary of State. As an order, it cannot apply, to you, Mr. Van Adams, but you have been so kind and helpful hitherto that I feel sure you"ll give me your promise? You must see how necessary it is."

Mr. Van Adams was going to use his word-of-all-work, I saw it coming, when he changed his mind.

"I"m on," he said instead.

The two pilots gave me their a.s.surances, and we walked out of the office together. As we went along the terrace Pring pointed down to the sea-drome, where the millionaire"s air yacht, a beautiful boat, painted cream colour and black, was now resting at her moorings.

"The _Atlantis_ starts to-night," he said significantly.

"She will be escorted by an armed patrol," I said, "until she meets one of the American A.P. ships in mid-ocean. Surely, you don"t think there"s any danger?"

To tell the truth, I had been so concentrated upon the matter in hand that I had hardly given a thought to the outgoing liner. Can you blame me? Anyway, duty came before any private considerations. Now, Pring"s remark started a new set of thoughts. I looked at him with great anxiety. He did not know the whole of my reason, but he saw that I was disturbed.

"No, Sir John," he answered, "I don"t think the danger worth the waggle of a mule"s ear. It was only a pa.s.sing remark. It stands to reason that Captain Kidd"ll know that the police boats of two hemispheres are out looking for him in swarms by now. He"ll figure that out, sure. If he was to start any of his stunts within the next few days, he"d have about as much chance as a fat man in Fiji."

"That"s what I thought."