Chapter TWENTY

In Honolulu the greatest consternation prevailed. The return of the pirate over the airways had completely disrupted the service of its airport, which was the most important in the whole Pacific Ocean, because of its central location. The destruction of the airship Montgolfier came at the moment when the confidence of the commercial aerial transport companies had just been completely restored through the report issued by the government to the effect that the pirate had been killed.

Now chaos again ruled the air. Every company had cancelled its schedules, and the only transportation to and from the islands was by means of the slower mode of travel afforded by steamships. The government officials were somewhat at a loss how to deal with the unprecedented situation. Their chances of bringing the pirate to justice were apparently very meagre, particularly as there were now fewer government aircraft units in and about the islands than ever before.

It began to look as though the only way to deal with the marauder lay in the destruction of his base. Without a base to operate from the advantage he enjoyed in the air over all other types of aircraft would be destroyed. This view had rapidly gained the uppermost support of the government authorities and it formed the subject of an exchange of ideas, by cable, between the officials in Washington and Honolulu. After considerable discussion it was finally decided to commission every available naval craft in Pacific waters to a detailed search of the lesser known islands in an effort to discover the point from which the pirate operated.

Commander Fitzgerald was now rapidly convalescing in the post hospital. His illness had been chiefly due to mental causes developed by exposure and worry. The news that Miss Ingleton was alive and well had been just the tonic necessary to set him on the road to recovery. But as he was not expected to be in a condition to resume his command for a long time to come yet the aerial forces of the government assigned to the duty of attacking the pirate and policing the airways, had been placed in charge of Wing Commander Emerson, who had been Fitzgerald’s chief lieutenant.

A new plan of attack was adopted and put into operation. It involved using the two squadrons of battleplanes at Honolulu solely for police duty. These squadrons were instructed to keep the airways open as far as possible. It was decided that other squadrons would be dispatched to the Pacific to aid in this purpose. They were only to give battle to the pirate in case he was sighted, but were not to go outside their prearranged zone of patrol. The carefully detailed plan for searching the pirate out and attacking him had been abandoned because it was conceded that his superior speed and maneuvrability made aggressive tactics impossible.

In other words the offensive had passed from the air to the sea for the time being, so far as the government forces were concerned. The naval craft under orders of Captain Smith, the commandant of the Hawaiian naval district, were assigned to the duty of locating the base from which the pirate operated. As soon as any of the vessels had found this base, their instructions were to attack it, destroy everything within it connected with the pirates’ enterprise and take prisoner any one found upon the island.

Practically every vessel in the Pacific fleet was secretly detailed to this duty--battleships, cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, torpedoboats and auxiliary craft. Even submarines were put to work. Each division was given a certain section of territory to cover and was told to land upon and search every unimportant island within it. In addition to this the commanding officer of each vessel was instructed to make a detailed survey of each island visited and gather whatever information of a scientific character was obtainable. The latter instructions were, of course, apart from the main object of the plan, and were issued with the view of obtaining as much as possible out of the expedition.

In such manner was the new machinery for hunting down the aerial buccaneer set in motion. The experts in the Navy Department, after carefully examining the reports of the pirate’s previous activities, had calculated that the radius of his operations was limited to approximately two thousand miles. Taking the general location of his attacks upon the airships as a center, they had divided the circle within the 2,000 mile radius into six different zones. These zones by a strange coincidence naturally included six groups of mid-pacific islands. The naval patrol vessels were therefore divided into six divisions, each division assigned to a specific group of islands as follows:

Division No. 1.--America Islands.

Division No. 2. Hawaiian group.

Division No. 3. Phoenix Islands.

Division No. 4. Gilbert Islands.

Division No. 5. Marshall group.

Division No. 6. The Carolines.

The task of searching these zones thoroughly was commenced immediately with every available naval vessel. The forces employed were augmented as rapidly as other war-vessels could be rushed to the scene. Then for two weeks the six divisions of the naval patrol went about their task of searching the innumerable smaller islands without any concrete result. Suddenly one morning the light cruiser Farragut of the second division, which was steaming in Latitude 28 and the 180th meridian of longitude, sighted an open boat with what appeared to be a shirt hoisted upon an oar. Captain John B. Moore, commander of the Farragut altered his course in order to pick up the boat. As the cruiser drew closer to it he made out the name painted on the stern of the small boat, through his glasses. It read: “Hilo Honolulu.”

“Hilo,” he mused. “Let’s see, that was the name of the schooner that was used by the man Devant who was supposed to be the pirate. This may be the boat from that missing schooner, and if it is, we have made a real find.”

Ten minutes later the cruiser drew up alongside the small boat. Inside it was the figure of a man laying prone along the keel beneath the seats. An oar had been fastened to the center seat and a shirt was attached to it, evidently to act as a sail. A boat was lowered from the cruiser. It’s crew rowed over to the drifting boat and quickly lifted the man out of it and then rowed him back to the cruiser. He was still alive but exhausted. After a few hours of medical attention on the cruiser, the man began to show signs of returning consciousness. Presently he had recovered sufficiently to take an interest in his surroundings.

“Where am I,” he inquired feebly. “What ship is this?”

He was told, and then asked who he was and where he came from.

“Take me to Honolulu as quickly as you can, it is very important,” he replied.

“Are you a survivor of the schooner Hilo that sailed from Honolulu with Mr. Devant’s expedition?” asked the captain.

“No,” replied the man.

“Why do you want to go to Honolulu then?”

“I am very tired. Please don’t ask me any more questions just now.”

“But why do you want to go to Honolulu? Are you in any way connected with the aerial pirate who has been attacking airplanes?”

“No! but I’ve just come from his base,” replied the stranger weakly. A moment later, overcome by the strain, he again lapsed into unconsciousness.