"You"ll have room for me, then?"
"Good heavens, no!" cried Mr. Greatorex. "Couldn"t _hear_ of it!"
"But it was my idea, you know, Mr. Greatorex. I was only longing for something to fill these holidays."
"Absurd! Preposterous! You"re under age; you couldn"t go without your father"s permission; you couldn"t ask that without giving the whole thing away: and I couldn"t be responsible for you."
"Well, I tell you what it is, Mr. Greatorex. You invite me to go a cruise in your yacht. The mater"s got a notion that my lungs are weak, and was saying only the other day that a sea trip would do me good. I"d see some of the fun, then."
"_There_ you are, Mr. Oliphant! _Fun! I_ regard it as most _serious_, I a.s.sure you. Now, in _my_ young days--"
"I bet you liked fun as well as any of us, Mr. Greatorex," said Oliphant quickly. "If the truth were known, I dare say you really beat us all."
Mr. Greatorex"s eyes twinkled.
"Well, now I come to think of it, I _was_ a wild young rip. So they all said. I remember-- But come now, I mustn"t tell you _that_. _Never_ do!
Your father would never let you go; he doesn"t know me and doesn"t want to, and I"m doing my level best to kick him out at the next election."
"And he"ll probably be jolly glad if you succeed! Mayn"t I come, Mr.
Greatorex?"
"Sorry to disoblige you, Mr. Oliphant, but it would _never do_. No. In fact, I think we"ll give it up altogether. Too risky! We"ll give it _up_, Tom."
Oliphant went home in a very bad temper.
"Mrs. Greatorex is a dear old thing," said his sister.
"And Mr. Greatorex is an old rotter," retorted Raymond in a tone of disgust.
Margaret Oliphant obtained very unsatisfactory answers to the questions to which this remark gave rise, and concluded that in some way Raymond had not hit it with his host.
Mr. Greatorex would doubtless have been much surprised had he seen the letter which Lord Langside wrote to his son a few days later.
"My dear Ray," wrote the Prime Minister,-
"Are you conspiring against me, like Absalom? Mr. Greatorex can"t do me much harm on a yacht. He won"t see a newspaper for a month! Hope you"ll enjoy yourself.
"Your affectionate "Dad."
Oliphant showed this letter to no one. But the day he received it, he went a long and tedious journey by train across country to the little port of Horleston. He reached home very late, but in much better spirits than might have been expected after such a tiresome experience of slow trains.
CHAPTER V-OFF THE BARBARY COAST
The week was filled with the bustle of preparation. The airship was divided into sections, the motors and the framework taken to pieces, and the whole packed into large light crates and conveyed to the coast on country carts, their arrival at Horleston being so timed that everything could be put on board very early in the morning. Besides the crew, the company consisted only of Mr. Greatorex, Tom Dorrell, and Timothy Ball.
Before the vessel put off, a custom house officer came aboard, and showed himself somewhat inquisitive as to the meaning of the strange platform newly rigged on the after deck, and as to the nature of the bulky packages. Mr. Greatorex explained that they contained a cooling apparatus which he was taking out to Morocco on behalf of an acquaintance, adding that by all accounts the country was pretty hot in all respects. With this explanation the officer had to be content.
Clearly the parts of the airship did not come within the description of explosives, firearms or other articles on which he might exercise his powers of detention. Still, being by training suspicious, he was evidently by no means satisfied, and left the yacht somewhat unwillingly.
Steam was already up and the officer had barely left the vessel before she put to sea.
"Just as well to be clear away before he gets his second wind," said Mr.
Greatorex with a chuckle. In his spotless white ducks and blue cap he was enjoying himself already. "Did that uncommonly well, didn"t I, Tom?"
he said. "What could be more useful than cooling apparatus when there"s a chance of getting into very hot water, eh?"
He took a run over the vessel as soon as she had made an offing. His yacht was a hobby, and whenever he went for a cruise he liked to examine her in the company of his officers, with whom, as with the crew, whom he knew individually, he was very popular. In the course of his inspection he came to the engine room.
"How do, Mr. Mumford!" he said genially to the engineer. "All in good order, eh?"
"Tip-top, sir. This is the neatest bit of machinery I"ve ever had to do with."
"Glad to hear that. I _say_, is that a new stoker I see there? What"s become of Byles?"
"His mother is very ill, sir, and he had to cry off at the last moment.
I was very lucky to get a man to fill the place."
"Ha! Looks rather _young_, doesn"t he? Overgrown, perhaps. Any _good_?"
"Can"t tell yet, sir. I"ll let you know later on. He shapes very well.
He"s a fine well-made young fellow; very willing, too. Byles said he"d go bail for him to any amount."
"That"s all right. What"s his name?"
"M"Cracken, sir; Scotch, by the name. Would you like to speak to him, sir?"
"Just a word. Like to _know_ the men, you know. Gives "em a personal interest in their job, I always think."
The engineer called up the new stoker, a tall young fellow in the flannel shirt open at the neck, the loose reach-me-down, and the black-lead coated trousers affected by his kind. His face and arms were begrimed with black grease, and his mouth received an extra smudge as he drew the back of his hand across it, apparently in sheepish confusion.
"You"re a new man, M"Cracken," said the merchant pleasantly. "Hope you"ll get on well. Mr. Mumford won"t _over-work_ you, I can answer for that. Have you been long at this job?"
"No that lang, sir; just a wee while," the stoker replied in a somewhat husky voice.
"Exactly. Ah! well! Good morning."
"Good mornin", sir."
And Mr. Greatorex went on deck, satisfied that he had established excellent relations with the newest hand.
The first part of the voyage was rather stormy. The yacht, by no means a large vessel, shipped one or two fairly heavy seas, to the no small alarm of Tom, who was anxious lest the crates containing his machine should be washed overboard or otherwise injured. But halfway through the Bay the weather moderated, and by the time the yacht reached the lat.i.tude of Lisbon both wind and sea were calm enough, he thought, for his first experiment. It had been decided that the dusk of the evening would be the best time for the attempt, for it was just as necessary on sea as on land to avoid observation. If the airship were descried from the deck of a homeward-bound vessel, the fact, and the name of the yacht, might be marconigraphed to England, and then, as Mr. Greatorex said, all Fleet Street would be in a buzz.
Early one morning the crates were broken open. It took the best part of the day to piece the machine together, and Tom went over it bit by bit several times to a.s.sure himself that everything was in order. The airship was so placed that it could take flight over the stern of the yacht. When dusk was falling, the vessel"s engines were reversed, Tom arranging that as soon as the airship rose from the deck the yacht should be sent full speed ahead, to make sure that the apparatus cleared the vessel and ran no risk of fouling the funnel.
Mr. Greatorex had shown some nervousness as the critical moment approached. He insisted on lowering a boat in case the airship came to grief and Tom were thrown into the sea. Timothy Ball, too, looked on with a most woful countenance as the final preparations were made. He had unslung a life belt, ready to slip into it and fling himself overboard if the airship broke down.
"I feel sure in my inside it won"t work," he said anxiously to Tom, as he stepped to the car. "It"ll be worse than suicide, sir."