Chapter XV: Aeroplane Wins!

Matt supposed that the automobile must have broken down somewhere on the road. His friends had not arrived in time to help him, so he was thrown upon his own resources.

While he and Miss Manners were racing toward the aëroplane, Matt was measuring his chances. The appearance of the second Hindoo, on the other side of the opening, complicated the dangers of the situation.

If these Hindoos were armed, as the girl had declared, then the case was indeed desperate. In making its start, however, the _Comet_ would be running away from Aurung Zeeb, and straight toward the other Hindoo. This second man would have to leave the road or be run down; and if the start was made quickly enough, the _Comet_ could get away from Aurung Zeeb.

"Sit there," cried Matt, lifting the girl to a seat on the lower plane. "Hold on," he added, starting the motor, "and don't move."

The girl's small fingers twined convulsively into the hand-holds. Matt dropped into his own seat and turned the power into the bicycle wheels. Slowly they took the push, the great wings lurching and swaying as the aëroplane moved.

Would it be possible for the machine, unaided by a crew of men behind the wings, to take to the air before the trees on the opposite side of the opening interfered?

This was a momentous, nay, a vital, question, and could only be solved by actual trial.

Out of the tails of his eyes Matt saw Ben Ali rising groggily to his feet. He flung up his arms and shouted.

Crack!

From behind came a bullet, ripping through the canvas of the upper plane, but, fortunately, doing no damage to the machinery. Aurung Zeeb was doing the firing.

And this same Aurung Zeeb had failed Ben Ali once in a dangerous pinch. This had caused a rupture of the friendly relations between the two men, but their differences had evidently been patched up. Now Aurung Zeeb was doing his utmost to help Ben Ali--and, perhaps, to land himself in the same trouble in which Dhondaram had been entrapped.

Another bullet was fired, but Aurung Zeeb must have been shooting as he ran, for his aim was poor.

Faster and faster raced the aëroplane, and Matt kept measuring the distance between the machine and the trees on the farther side of the opening. The Hindoo, in the road ahead, was running out of the aëroplane's path like a frightened hare.

By then, Ben Ali had joined in the chase, but the speed of the _Comet_ was too great for the pursuers.

They were close to the edge of the timber, very close, when Matt felt the wings beginning to lift. A dozen feet farther and they were in the air.

In a flash the power was switched from the wheels to the propeller. The aëroplane dropped a little before it yielded to the thrashing blades of the screw; then it picked up the lost headway and arose.

The upward tilt was frightful, but necessary if a wreck in the treetops was to be avoided.

Never a word had come from Margaret Manners. White as a ghost, she held to her place, swaying her body to preserve a poise against the tilt and pitch of the huge framework.

The wheels brushed against the outer ends of the tree limbs, but the machine continued to glide into the air, walking upward as though climbing the rounds of a ladder.

If the motor had failed from any cause, there could have been no harmless gliding back to earth. A sheer drop downward would have been the result.

But the motor performed its work, and the trees presently hid the Hindoos and screened the _Comet_ from any further attack.

Then, and not till then, did the king of the motor boys draw a full breath.

"Are you holding on, Miss Manners?" asked Matt.

"Yes," was the reply in a stifled voice.

"You're not afraid?"

"No."

"Bravo! We'll soon be back at the show grounds. You have seen the last of Ben Ali."

High above the trees Matt brought the _Comet_ to an even keel, then laid out in a straightaway flight toward the lake. This time he did not follow the Elgin road, but struck across country the nearest way home.

That was not the first time Margaret Manners had had a ride in the aëroplane. Some time before, when, under the name of Haidee, she had traveled with the Big Consolidated, she had ridden on a trapeze swung below the machine. It was against Matt's will, and only a trick of Burton's had made it possible for the girl to make the ascension. At the time she was under hypnotic influence, and could not realize what she was doing. So, it followed, this was really the first ride she had ever taken in the aëroplane while mistress of her own faculties and able to understand her situation.

She behaved admirably, and did not even cry out when the wings tilted sideways, or ducked forward with the seeming intention of hurling her and Matt to the earth.

There was no talk between the two. In silence Matt attended to his work, drove the _Comet_ at speed over the show grounds, circled, and came down in the roped-off space set apart for the machine.

The crowds were still lingering, waiting for the aëroplane to return. Cheering began as soon as the _Comet_ was in sight, and was kept up until she was safely on the ground in the position from which she had originally started.

Carl and Ping were waiting, too, and the eyes of both boys were big with astonishment when they saw and recognized Margaret Manners.

"Vell, py shiminy grickets!" exclaimed Carl.

The girl smiled at him wanly as Matt helped her from her seat.

"You and Ping take care of the machine, Carl," cautioned Matt, as he led Miss Manners to the guard ropes and parted a course for her through the jostling mob.

"Hurrah for Motor Matt!" shouted some one. "He goes out alone and comes back with a passenger!"

A laugh followed the cheer.

"What's the price for a trip on the _Comet_?" called some one else.

"Where does your air-ship line run?"

"Give me a ticket to San Francisco!"

Matt met the joking good-naturedly and piloted Miss Manners to the calliope tent. The girl was tired and worn out.

"You'd better get a little rest, Miss Manners," Matt suggested. "What you have passed through this morning would have shaken nerves much stronger than yours."

"I don't want to rest," she answered; "I want to talk. You have saved me again, Motor Matt, but what is the use of it all if I can't leave this country and go to England, or back to India? Ben Ali will find me again."

"You are through with him," said Matt, "just as I told you. A man has come from the British legation in Washington to get you and send you away by the first boat leaving New York."

"The man who came to Mrs. Chadwick's in Lafayette said the same thing," answered the girl wearily. "It seems as though there is no escaping Ben Ali."

"Has he hypnotized you many times since he took you from Mrs. Chadwick's?" asked Matt anxiously.

"Only once. I gave up hope, and went with him without trying to resist. He said he intended to send me back to India, but not until the rajah had paid him a lot of rupees."

"He treated you well?"

"He always treated me well--in his way--but the horror of going into a trance and saying and doing things I know nothing about is more terrible than ever to me. It was the fear of a trance that made me promise not to make Uncle Ben any trouble."

"Who was the man who impersonated the agent of the British ambassador?"

"I had never seen him before."

"I thought that perhaps he might have been the man who sold tickets in the ticket wagon for Burton--the one who was with the show when you and Ben Ali were traveling with us."

She shook her head.

"I should have known that man if it had been he."

"Where did the man take you?"

"On the train somewhere. I thought we were going to Washington until we got off the train at a little station and met Uncle Ben. It was then he threw me into a trance, and when he awoke me we were at a little house near the place where we went this morning to wait for Dhondaram. Aurung Zeeb was at the house, and so was the other Hindoo--a man I had never seen before. You are sure," the girl asked tremblingly, "that this other agent of the British ambassador is really the person he pretends to be?"

The girl's lack of confidence was pitiable. She had suffered so much that Matt could readily understand her feelings.

"I am positive, Miss Manners," he answered gently. "You must rest now. I will have Mrs. Harris come and stay with you for a while."

The girl did not object, and Matt had soon found Mrs. Harris and sent her to the calliope tent.

Two hours later, while Matt was lounging around the front of the animal tent, a tired party consisting of Burton, Twomley, and McGlory arrived from the direction of the street-car line.

"You Matt!" cried McGlory. "Why didn't you wait and give us a chance?"

"If I'd waited much longer," answered Matt, "there wouldn't have been a chance for anybody. Did you see me coming back from the oak opening?"

"Did we?" echoed Twomley, putting his monocle in his eyes. "By Jove, I should say we did. Fancy! You up aloft, sailing as nice as you please with Miss Manners beside you, and Burton, McGlory, and me tramping along the road."

"What was the matter?" asked Matt.

"Matter?" fumed Burton. "What's the matter when you set out in an automobile and don't arrive where you're going? The motor bucked, three miles out of Grand Rapids, and you sailed right along and never paid any attention to us. McGlory, Twomley, and I started to walk the rest of the distance, when we saw the machine couldn't be fixed up for an hour or so, and before we'd gone a mile you sailed off in the direction of the show grounds--and never looked our way! Oh, blazes! I'm done with automobiles."