Then he lifted a lid of the locker, took out a small instrument and busied himself with the manipulation of its mechanism. Bob leaned over the edge of the car and devoted his attention to the scene below.
Directly beneath lay the sleeping village, its roofs showing white in the bright moonlight. To east and west the hills rolled away, their summits hoary, their bases shadowy and obscure; and among them wound the placid river—a stream of molten silver threading the narrow vale. The roar of the distant mill-dam sounded sullen and indistinct, and the mists rising from it waved as fairy plumes and banners. The lad looked and listened, entranced, enraptured.
“How beautiful it all is!” he murmured feelingly to himself, a catch in his voice. “I—I like it; and I rather hate to leave it.”
“Homesick already, are you, before you’re out of sight of home?” Fitz Mee queried, his eyes upon the curious instrument he had placed in the bottom of the car.
“No, I’m not homesick!” Bob retorted sharply.
“You’re not?” Fitz grinned provokingly. “What did you mean by your words, then?”
“I was just admiring the beautiful scene, that’s all,” Bob explained.
“Oh!” ejaculated the goblin, wagging his head and saucily extruding his tongue.
“Uh-huh,” the lad nodded in return.
“Well, I’ll show you scenes far more beautiful—in Goblinland.”
It was Bob’s turn to sneer.
“Maybe you will,” he said.
“I will,” Fitz asserted positively.
“When?”
“When we get there, of course.”
“Yes; when we get there.”
“Well, we’ll get there.”
“We’re not going very fast; we’re still right over the town.”
And the boy laughed aloud, scornfully.
“We haven’t started yet,” the goblin countered.
“No; and we’re not likely to start, as far as I can see—unless a wind storm comes on; and it may blow us in any direction.”
“Bosh!” barked the goblin.
“Bosh, yourself!” snarled the boy.
“Say, Bob?”
“What?”
“Let’s quit quarreling.”
“All right.”
“Shake!”
They solemnly shook hands.
“Now,” the goblin cried briskly, “if you’re ready to say good-bye to home, we’ll be off.”
“I’m ready,” the lad answered; “but I don’t see how we’re going to be off.”
“I’ll show you. See that little instrument on the floor of the car?”
“That compass?”
“That’s not a compass.”
A broad band of moonlight streamed in at the open window. (See page 11.)
“It isn’t?”
“No.”
“Well, it looks like one. What is it?”
“A wireless selector.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’ve heard of wireless telegraph instruments?”
“Yes.”
“And you know they send messages with them without using wires, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, too, you’ve heard or read that there are currents of electricity running around the globe in all directions, haven’t you?”
“I—I think I have; yes.”
“Well, the selector picks up or selects any current the operator desires, and enables him to travel over it in his balloon, using it as a propelling power.”
“Well—well!” Bob exploded, in frank admiration. “Just like a trolley car!”
“Yes, except no wire is needed.”
“I don’t see how you tell which way it’ll go, though.”
“The balloon?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll go whichever way the needle points.”
“Why will it?”
“Well, the needle of a compass points north, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Why does it?”
“Because—because—I don’t know, I guess,” Bob admitted.
“Because the attraction swings it, isn’t that it?”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, if the attraction swings the needle, won’t the needle swing the attraction?”
“I—I don’t know,” the boy stammered; “I never heard of such a thing!”
“Isn’t it a poor rule that won’t work both ways?”
“Yes; that’s what folks say, anyhow.”
“Well, it is—a mighty poor rule. Now I’ll show you. Watch me. I desire to travel due east; so I point this little needle in that direction. That done, I turn this thumb-screw, and off we start.”
Slowly the balloon began to move toward the east, over the village, across the river, gradually leaving the valley behind.
“I turn the screw a little more and a little more,” said the goblin, suiting the action to the words, “and we begin to travel faster and faster.”
Soon they were going at a rapid and exhilarating speed. The air appeared to whistle past as they cut through it; the moonlit landscape appeared to flow away behind and beneath them.
“My—my!” Bob cried, gleefully clapping his hands. “I never expected to travel as fast as this. Fitz, this is simply great.”
“You don’t call this gentle speed going fast, do you, Bob?” Fitz returned, grinning broadly.
“Indeed I do,” the boy replied earnestly.
“Oh, we’re just loafing along!” the goblin chuckled. “I’ll show you how I travel when I’m in a hurry to get along. Take off your cap, or you’ll lose it, and hold on to the car. Now!”
With the last word he gave another turn to the thumb-screw of the selector. The balloon leaped forward like a mad thing of life; the fragile car strained and quivered. Bob clutched the seat with both hands and held on for dear life. The air appeared to rush past in a cutting, shrieking tempest of wrath, that blinded and deafened the boy. He tried to scream out, but could not. He felt his grip upon the seat weakening, and, fearing he might be swept overboard, he loosened his hold and threw himself to the bottom of the car. There he lay, panting and gasping—sick with mortal terror. Then, of a sudden, the mad speed of the balloon began to slacken and the boy gradually gathered up courage to open his eyes and look around.
There sat the impish Fitz Mee by the selector, his hand upon the thumb-screw.
“Hello!” the goblin grinned apishly.
“Hello!” the boy muttered in reply.
“How did you like it?” queried the goblin.
“I didn’t like it,” answered the lad.
“Wasn’t it fast enough for you?”
“Too fast.”
“Oh!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wouldn’t you like to try it just a little bit faster, eh?”
“No sir!”
“It’s great fun—when you learn to like it.”
“Yes,” Bob grumbled; “and taking pills is great fun—when you learn to like ’em.”
“I can make the balloon go faster,” Fitz suggested.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Bob grinned, shaking his head.
They got up and seated themselves upon the locker.
“Well,” the goblin remarked, yawning, “what do you think of us goblins as balloonists?”
“I think you’re the candy,” Bob replied, his voice and manner evincing profound admiration.
“The candy?” snickered his companion. “What do you mean by that?”
“I think you’re the best ever.”
“Oh! Better than you humans, eh?”
“Far better.”
“That so?”
“Yes, indeed. And When I come back from Goblinland, I’m going to get patents on your air-ballast machine and your wireless selector; and some day I’ll be a mighty rich man—a millionaire.”
The goblin grinned a very broad grin.
“You’re going to take out patents on our inventions, you say, Bob?” he remarked.
“Yes,” the boy made reply.
“When you return from Goblinland, eh?”
“Yes.”
Fitz Mee gulped and screwed his features. Then he began to chuckle silently, and at last he burst out laughing.
“What’s the matter?” Bob inquired, half in wonder, half in pique.
“Oh, it’s so funny,” croaked the goblin, and he went into another spasm of rasping, cackling laughter.
“It must be funny,” the boy grunted peevishly. “But what’s so funny?”
“The thought of your returning from Goblinland, Bob,” Fitz Mee replied, sobering and wiping his eyes.
“Why, can’t I return—if I ever want to?”
“You can, I suppose; but I doubt if you ever will.”
“Why?”
“Oh, ’cause.”
“Well, ’cause what?”
“You won’t want to, after you’ve been there a day or two.”
“That’s it, eh?”
The goblin nodded and winked seriocomically, mysteriously. Then he said:
“Now we’ve got to ascend a few thousand feet to clear the tops of the Alleghany mountains. Let a little more air out of the tank. There—that’s enough. It’ll be quite cool at the altitude to which we’ll rise, so we’d better put on the fur coats that are in the locker under you, Bob, and curl down in the car and snooze awhile.”
A few minutes later the two were asleep and the feather-bed balloon was topping the Alleghanies.
On awaking Bob was a little confused. But soon he remembered where he was, and he sat up and blinked and looked around for his companion. Fitz Mee stood upon the locker, a tiny binocular glued to his pop eyes, gazing intently at the western horizon. It was gray daylight, and they were making good speed.
“What’s the matter, Fitz?” Bob demanded, alert and interested at once. “What’re you looking at?”
“Looking at a storm gathering,” the goblin replied, without turning his head.
The boy rose to his feet, removed his fur coat, and wadded it into a ball and stuffed it into the locker.
“Storm?” he said. “I don’t see any signs of a storm.”
“Don’t you see that blue line along the horizon?” Fitz asked.
“Yes. Is that the storm?”
“No; that’s the mountains we crossed. But take this glass and you can see the storm gathering on their tops. See it?”
“My!” Bob exclaimed, the glass to his eyes. “I guess I do see it! It’s a black one, too; and it’s moving this way. How soon will it overtake us?”
This question he asked in some trepidation.
“It won’t overtake us at all, unless we care to have it do so,” the goblin made answer.
“Why, can we outrun it?”
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Sure, if we want to.”
“Well, we’ll want to, won’t we?”
“It’ll be fun to wait till it’s nearly upon us and then run away from it, I think. Don’t you?”
“I—I don’t know,” Bob returned, dubiously shaking his head, his gaze still riveted upon the rising storm; “it might not be fun.”
“You’re afraid,” sneered the goblin.
“No, I’m—I’m not.”
“Yes, you are; you’re a coward.”
“Don’t you call me that!” the lad cried, snatching the binocular from his eyes and angrily turning upon his Companion.
“I won’t,” the goblin promised. “Now turn your glass toward the east. What do you see?”
“I see the sea!” Bob cried rapturously.
hummed Fitz Mee in sing-song. Then he continued:
“If you’ll take a glance at the ground beneath us, you’ll notice we’re moving very slowly. I’m loitering—waiting for the storm to catch up with us; then we’ll have a race with it, out across the ocean. In the meantime we’ll have breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Bob questioned. “Where’s breakfast coming from?”
“From the locker,” smiled the goblin, rubbing his round little belly and smacking his lips in anticipatory gusto, “where everything else we need’ll come from. I always keep my air-ship stored for a long voyage, for when I leave Goblinland on business, I never know when I’ll get back home again. Are you hungry?”
“You bet!” was the lad’s expressive but inelegant rejoinder.
“Well, what do you think you need this morning? You can have whatever you require.”
“What do I think I need?” Bob tittered. “What a question! I need breakfast, of course, Fitz.”
“Of course,” snapped the goblin. “But do you need muscle food, or nerve food, or fat food, or what?”
“I—I don’t know,” stammered the boy, scratching his head in perplexity. “I never heard of such things, I guess. I know what I’d like, though; I’d like steak and gravy and hot biscuits, and some fruit and a glass of milk.”
“Huh!” the goblin snorted in supreme contempt. “You’ll find, Bob, we don’t indulge in such indigestible truck in Goblinland. Our foods are scientifically prepared, not slapped together haphazard. We use nothing but the concentrated extracts—the active principals of food stuffs. I’ll show you.”
He went to the locker and brought forth a small leather hand-case or satchel.
“Why—why,” Bob muttered, his eyes bulging, “that looks just like papa’s medicine-case!”
“Well, it isn’t,” Fitz Mee grunted irritably; “it’s my portable pantry.”
And he loosened the catch and flung the case open, displaying several rows of tiny bottles containing tablets and pellets of various shapes, sizes and colors.
“Ugh!” the boy gagged. “Pills!”
“They’re not pills,” rasped the goblin; “they’re food tablets and drink pellets.”
“They’re pills to me, all the same.”
“They’re not pills, I tell you,” Fitz Mee reiterated sharply, snapping his jaws shut and angrily grating his teeth. “Now I’ll select what you’re to eat; and you’ll eat it. The storm’s approaching rapidly; I hear the thunder muttering and see the black clouds rolling. So you’ll need something to make you strong and courageous. Here’s a tiger-muscle tablet and a lion-heart tablet. Down ’em.”
Bob shut his mouth and shook his head.
“Down ’em!” the goblin repeated.
“Uk-uh!” the lad grunted.
“You must!”
“I won’t!”
“You’ll starve if you don’t eat.”
“I’d rather starve than take pills.”
“Nonsense!”
“I would!”
“It won’t take you but a second to swallow ’em, Bob,” Fitz Mee said coaxingly. “That’s one of the advantages of our kind of food; it don’t take long to eat a meal.”
“I never begrudged the time I spent in eating,” Bob remarked, with rather a sickly grin.
“Well, down the tablets—that’s a good boy.”
“Are those—those things all you’ve got to eat?”
“Yes.”
“And don’t you have anything else in Goblinland?”
“No, of course not.”
“Oh, dear!” wailed the boy. “I wish I was back home! Nothing to eat but pills! Golly!”
“There, there, Bob!” the goblin said soothingly, kindly even. “You don’t wish you were back home; you’re just hungry and nervous. Take these tablets and you’ll be all right in a jiffy.”
Bob silently held out his hand, his face a picture of lugubrious woe, and silently took the tablets and swallowed them.
Fitz Mee idly fingered the tiny bottles in the case for a minute or two, mumbling over the names upon the labels. Then he looked up and asked:
“Feel better, Bob?”
“Yes,” the lad admitted rather reluctantly, “I feel stronger and better, but I’m still awful empty.”
“But you’re not hungry?”
“No; just hollow-like.”
“That’s because you’ve been used to filling your stomach with gross food,” the goblin stated sagely; “you’ll get over that condition after you’ve lived on tablets and pellets a month or two.”
“A month or two!” the lad groaned. “Oh, dear!”
“You haven’t had anything to drink,” Fitz remarked, smiling brightly. “Take this pellet.”
“What is it?”
“A water pellet. It contains a pint of water.”
“That teenty-weenty thing?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, nonsense!”
“It does.”
“I don’t believe it; it can’t.”
“You down it and you’ll soon see.”
Bob took the tiny clear pellet and instantly announced:
“My thirst’s all gone, Fitz, and I feel fuller.”
“But you’re still a little lank—a little empty-like, eh?”
“A little, yes.”
“Well, I’ll fix you. Take this.”
“Oh, stop,” the boy demurred. “I’m not going to take all the pills in that case.”
“This is the last dose I’ll ask you to take,” the goblin returned, batting his eyes at a bright flash of lightning from the rapidly approaching storm.
“Well, what is it?” Bob demanded, dodging the sharp clap of thunder almost immediately following the lightning.
“A sponge tablet.”
“What’s it for?”
“It’s to absorb some of the water you’ve taken, and to swell and fill your stomach.”
“I don’t want it—I don’t need it,” Bob said, decidedly shaking his head.
“All right,” Fitz laughed, “you don’t have to take it. We just make ’em for folks who aren’t satisfied unless their stomachs are full all the time. Now I’ll eat my breakfast.”
He hastily selected and swallowed a number of tablets and pellets; then he closed the leather case with a bang and a snap and thrust it into the locker.
“Now,” he smiled, “I guess we’re all ready to play tag with that tempest. And we’ll show it a thing or two—oh, won’t we!”
“Maybe it’ll show us a thing or two,” Bob replied, grinning a sickly grin and shaking his head dubiously. “It’s getting pretty close and I don’t like the looks of it. My! Just see those clouds rolling and whirling! Fitz, I believe it’s a cyclone!”
“No, it isn’t,” his companion muttered contemptuously; “it’s nothing but a summer thunder gust.”
By this time the storm was close upon them, coming swiftly. The lightning was forking and flashing incessantly; the thunder was crackling and crashing continuously. Bob gazed at the rolling, tumbling masses of black clouds, at the play of electricity, and the forest and fruit trees bending before the blast, and shivered; he listened to the mingled, indescribable uproar of booming thunder and bellowing wind, and shuddered.
“Oh, let’s be off, Fitz!” he pleaded.
“We’re off!” his comrade cried, giving a half turn to the thumb-screw of the selector.
Before the raging storm they sped, the boy frightened and miserable, the goblin elated and jubilant. Rapidly they approached the ocean, and soon they were sailing over a city on the shore. Binocular in hand, Bob watched the storm behind and the earth beneath, and trembled. He saw people rushing to shelter; saw fences and groves leveled, and skyscrapers and steeples sent crashing to earth.
“Oh, Fitz—Fitz!” the lad groaned. “It is a cyclone!”
“I guess it is,” the goblin answered nonchalantly.
“And it’s coming closer!” the boy cried in terror. “Let’s go faster!”
“Oh, this is all right; this is fine sport,” the goblin laughed, capering about the car and gleefully rubbing his hands.
Out over the ocean they flew—out of sight of land—out over the boundless expanse of heaving, tossing waters. After them raced the storm, each minute drawing a little nearer and a little nearer. It was almost upon them!
“Please, please let’s go faster, Fitz!” Bob screeched, dancing up and down in an ecstacy of keen affright.
But his shrill cry was whirled away in the tumult of rushing air that enveloped them, and if the goblin heard, which is doubtful, he paid no attention to his companion’s frantic plea. Then of a sudden the balloon stopped with a smart jerk and began to whirl round and round dizzily. Fitz Mee’s fat face went white as paper, and he let out a cry of alarm and dismay.
“What’s the matter, Fitz?” Bob bawled, staggering to his comrade’s side and shouting in his ear. “What’s the matter?”
“The lightning has magnetized the selector!” the goblin bellowed. “Look at the needle—pointing right back toward the storm! We’re drifting right back into it! There is nothing now to prevent it!”
It was too true!
Immediately they were engulfed—overwhelmed in the maelstrom of cloud and wind and rain. They could neither see nor hear for the fury of the elements. The balloon spun round and round like a top; the light car jerked and swayed and shot this way and that with lightning-like and awful suddenness. One of the small ropes supporting it broke and hung dangling from the side. Another parted and the car sagged dangerously. A frightful lurch and Fitz Mee was flung upon the locker, the breath knocked out of him; another lurch, and, with a despairing scream that sounded above the deafening tumult of the tornado, he rolled overboard and disappeared.
Bob threw himself into the bottom of the car, his eyes tight shut, his palms over his ears, and lay there groaning and moaning. His comrade was gone and he gave himself up for lost. Oh, how he wished he was safe at home! But in the midst of the tumultuous storm and his tumultuous thoughts a bright idea suddenly came to him. He started, he sprang to his feet and was flung flat again. Then, shaking his head and gritting his chattering teeth, he wriggled over to the air-tank and turned the cock. The hiss of the escaping air was music to him. Little by little the buffeted balloon rose, and soon it floated serenely above the zone of the warring winds and clouds. Bob was saved!
A little while he lay upon the floor of the car, looking at the clear sky overhead and wondering what he was to do. Then he thought of his lost companion, and murmured feelingly:
“Poor old Fitz! Poor old Spasms!”
As if in answer to his pitying words, he heard a voice calling faintly but snappishly:
“Bob, you rascal! Don’t you dare to call me Spasms!”
Electrified, the boy sprang to his feet and looked all around.
“Fitz!” he ejaculated. “But where can he be?” Then in superstitious fear:
“He’s dead; it must be his ghost!”
“Ghost nothing!” came the voice again, a little louder, more vigorous. “Bob, you’re a fool!”
“Is—is that you, Fitz?” the boy faltered in reply.
“Of course, dunce!”
“Well, where are you?”
“Right down here, dummy!”
Bob flew to the side of the car, hunkered upon the locker and peered over. There, a few feet down, was Fitz Mee hanging to one of the broken ropes.
“Why—why, Fitz, what are you doing down there?” Bob asked foolishly.
“Oh, just enjoying myself; surely you can see that,” the goblin sneered wrathfully. “But I’ve had enough; I’m no pig. Pull me up.”
“I don’t know whether I can or not,” Bob answered. “But reach me up your hand; I’ll try.”
After a deal of struggling and kicking and grunting on the part of both, Fitz was safely aboard.
“I thought I was a goner when I fell over,” he panted; “I just happened to catch the rope.” Then, with unusual feeling: “And you saved us both, Bob, by thinking to let out the air. I couldn’t have hung on, in that storm, a minute longer; and, then the balloon was fast going to wreck. It was my foolhardiness that caused all the trouble, and your thoughtfulness that got us out of it. I’ll never go back on you, Bob, old boy, never! But now the storm’s past, we must get under way again.”
“Will the selector work?” the boy asked in some anxiety.
“It’ll be all right, now,” the goblin assured him. “See? Off we go again. And I’ll give her an extra turn for good speed; I’m keen to get along toward home. It must be the middle of the forenoon.”
For an hour or two they sailed along steadily, covering mile after mile of aërial space with the swiftness of an arrow. At last, however, Bob remarked:
“Fitz, it appears to me we’re closer to the ocean than we were a while back; we must be descending. I wonder if the rain wet the feathers in the bag.”
“No,” the goblin replied positively. “They can’t get wet. They, and the bag, too, for that matter, have been treated with goose oil; and they won’t wet.”
“Won’t wet?”
“No. You know a goose’s feathers never get wet, no matter how much it goes in the water. We raise thousands of geese in Goblinland just for the feathers and the oil to treat them and our balloon bags with. We can’t be descending, Bob.”
But he stepped to the side of the car and cast his eyes upward. Then suddenly he started and collapsed upon the seat, white and trembling.
“What is it, what’s the matter, Fitz?” the lad questioned falteringly, fearing what the answer would be.
“Bob,” his companion muttered hoarsely, “we are descending! We’re lost—we’ll be drowned in the ocean! There’s a rip in the bag and the feathers are escaping one by one!”
Bob drew a deep breath and dropped down beside his companion. For several minutes they sat silent, each staring stonily into the other’s white face. At last the boy murmured huskily:
“Fitz, are the feathers es—escaping very fast? Can’t we do something to stop the leak?”
The goblin shook his head.
“Not very fast,” he said slowly, moistening his dry lips by rubbing them together, “just one at a time.”
“Is the rip in the bag a very big one?”
“No.”
Bob brightened.
“Couldn’t we climb up some way and fix it?” he inquired.
The goblin gave a negative shake of the head.
“No,” he replied, “it’s ’way up near the top of the bag.”
“Well, what’re we going to do, Fitz?”
“There’s nothing we can do, Bob. The feathers are escaping—one now and then; and, little by little, the balloon will lose its buoyancy and sink into the sea. We’re lost!”
“Look here, Fitz,” Bob cried sharply. “Surely you’re not going to give up that way. I didn’t think it of you. There must be something we can do to save ourselves.”
The goblin dropped his chin upon his breast and, rolling his head, muttered: “Nothing!”
“But,” the lad persisted, “we must do something. There’s a little air still left in the tank, and when we sink too low we can let that out, and rise again. If we sail as fast as we can, can’t we cross the ocean before we drop into it?”
Fitz Mee leaped to his feet like one electrified.
“Thank you, Bob—thank you!” he cried, grasping his companion’s hand. “You’ve given me hope. We’ll try your project; and if we lose, we’ll have the satisfaction of knowing we died trying!” And he set his jaws with a resolute snap.
“I can’t see where there’ll be much satisfaction in that for us—after we’re dead,” the lad muttered under his breath.
The goblin hurried to the selector, and gradually turned the thumb-screw until the machine was wide open—the current was all on.
The balloon instantly responded, and began to fly through the air at a speed little short of miraculous; its two occupants had to throw themselves prostrate and cling to the locker for safety. The still summer air appeared to be blowing a hurricane; the placid, heaving ocean appeared to be racing toward the west, a foaming, tossing torrent. One by one, a few each minute, the feathers escaped through the rent in the striped bag; and foot by foot, very slowly and very surely, the aërial vehicle yielded to the overmastering power of gravitation.
On, on and on they sped, reeling off miles as a watch ticks off seconds. Neither the boy nor the goblin found anything to say. Both fully realized that they were running a race with death, and the knowledge awed them to silence.
The noon hour came, and still they were flying like mad, due east.
Fitz cautiously lifted his head, put the binocular to his eyes, and looked away toward the south.
“There’s the Azores,” he said, shouting in order to make himself heard, his tone expressing relief and satisfaction.
“The Azores?” Bob bellowed in reply.
“Yes—the islands.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; we’re making good time.”
“Well, hadn’t we better stop there?”
“No.”
“We’re only a few hundred feet above the water.”
The goblin shook his big head in a decided negative.
“Why not?” the boy insisted.
“I’m afraid to stop there.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes; I’m afraid there’s no geese on those islands.”
“Geese?”
“Yes, we’ve got to have goose feathers to refill our balloon bag.”
“Oh, I see! Well, what’re you going to try to do, Fitz?”
“Going to try to make the coast of Portugal. We’ll find geese there.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes; Portuguese.”
And Fitz Mee laughed at his own pun until his fat face became purple and his breath came and went in wheezing gasps.
“Oh, shut up!” Bob cried angrily. “This is no time to be laughing.”
“Laughing will do just as much good as crying, Bob,” Fitz made answer, but instantly sobering. “I believe we’ll come out all right. There are geese in Portugal; and I think we’ll be able to make the coast of that country. We’re making good time; and we’ve not had to exhaust the air-tank yet. We’ll drive ahead and hope for the best.”
One hour, two hours, three hours passed. The balloon descended so low that the car threatened to dip into the waves. The goblin released the remaining air in the tank, and again they soared aloft, but only a few hundred feet. Another hour and again they were dangerously near to the water.
Bob cried: “Why Fitz, the sun’s ’most down! This has been an awful short afternoon.”
“Yes,” the goblin nodded, “and the forenoon was short, too. You must remember we’re moving east very rapidly—running away from the sun, running to meet the night. It’ll be dark soon. I wish we’d sight the coast; it seems to me it’s about time we were doing so.”
“What’s that wavy blue line ahead of us?” Bob inquired.
“I don’t see anything,” Fitz answered.
“I do,” the boy insisted positively. “Give me the glass.”
“It must be land, then,” the goblin suggested.
“It is land!” Bob cried joyfully. “We’re going to be all right, Fitz.”
“I—I hope so,” Fitz made answer; “I hope we’ll make it.”
Warned by his companion’s tone and manner that danger was imminent, the lad jerked the binocular from his eyes and dropped his gaze to the ocean. One glance was sufficient; the car was threatening to dip into the water at any moment.
“Oh, Fitz!” the boy wailed. “What are we to do?”
“I don’t know!” Fitz whimpered, wringing his hands and wriggling about upon the locker. “We can’t do anything—oh, we can’t do anything! We’re lost—lost!”
“Look here, Fitz Mee, you old Convulsions!” Bob cried angrily. “You got me into this thing; now you’ve got to help get me out. Wake up! You’re playing the baby. And you called me a coward! You’re the coward! Wake up!” roughly shaking him, “We’ve got to throw something overboard; and I’ll throw you, in about a minute.”
Just then the car hit the water a glancing spat that threw a blinding cloud of brine over the two aëronauts. The balloon rebounded from the impact and continued its mad speed.
“Whee!” screamed Fitz Mee. “You’re right, Bob. We must lighten the balloon some way; one more lick like that will tear the car loose from the bag. Raise the lids of the locker, and throw out a lot of the old stuff we won’t need.”
Frantically they began to lighten ship, flinging into the sea odds and ends of various kinds—the accumulation of many voyages. It availed them little, however; the balloon ascended but a few feet, and skimmed dangerously near to the water, into which it threatened to take a final plunge at any moment.
Now the coast line was plainly visible to the naked eye; and now it was but a few miles away, the hills and rocks standing out distinctly. Yet how far off it seemed to the despairing aëronauts! Neither spoke; each held his breath and his tongue, expecting to have to make a final struggle and swim for life.
Lower and lower sank the balloon. Once more the car spatted the water, and this time it did not rebound, but went tearing along at railroad speed, deluging and almost drowning its occupants. For a few minutes the two lost all sense of their surroundings, nearly lost consciousness. Then the car struck the shelving, sandy shore with a smart bump, and the balloon came to a full stop. The wild and dangerous ride was over!
“Saved!” sputtered Fitz Mee, jumping from the car and dancing up and down.
“Saved!” coughed Bob, indulging in similar antics.
Then they tearfully embraced, whirling round and round, their saturated garments dripping a circle of wet upon the yellow sands.
The sun was gone from sight; the shades of night were stealing in upon them.
“We can’t do anything to-night toward resuming our voyage,” the goblin remarked; “it’s almost dark now. Then you’re wet and weak and I’m famished and faint. We’ll spend the hours of darkness here upon the warm sands, and in the morning we’ll look around us.”
“All right,” the boy agreed; “I guess that’s the best we can do.”
By dint of a deal of tugging and grunting, they drew the balloon up out of reach of wave and tide. Then they wrung their garments, swallowed a number of food-tablets and drink-pellets and lay down to sleep under the shelter of an overhanging cliff.
The sun was an hour high when they awoke. Simultaneously they opened their eyes and sprang to their feet. Sleep had much refreshed them; the warm air and sand had dried their garments. After partaking of a hearty but hasty breakfast, they began to look around them.
At their feet lay their balloon, a sorry wreck. But close examination made plain the fact that it could be easily repaired and put in shape. A short distance to the north a river put into the sea. They sauntered to the mouth of it, and took in the view of the broad fertile valley. A mile or two up the stream lay a small village.
“I’ll tell you what we’ve got to do, Bob,” Fitz remarked reflectively, scratching his head.
“Well, what?” inquired the boy.
“We’ve got to go into that town.”
“What for?”
“For cord and goose feathers. We need the cord to splice the broken ropes of our car, and we need the feathers to refill our bag.”
“Yes,” the lad mumbled, “we need those articles all right, Fitz; but maybe the people of the village don’t have such things.”
“Of course they do,” the goblin sneered superiorly.
“How do you know?” the boy said tauntingly.
“Well, I know.”
“No, you don’t; you just guess.”
“A goblin never guesses at anything.”
“I guess he does; you guessed we’d get drowned—but we didn’t.”
“Shut up!”
“You shut up!”
“I won’t!”
“Neither will I!”
Then they stood and silently glared at each other for a full half minute. Finally both began to look foolish, and burst out laughing.
“Fitz, you’re too hot-headed, you old Epilepsy,” Bob giggled.
“I know it,” tittered the goblin; “but so are you, Roberty-Boberty.”
“I know it,” the boy admitted; “but I can’t stay mad at you, Fitz.”
“I can’t stay mad at you, either, Bob. Now let’s stop our foolishness and go to that village, and see about the cord and feathers we need.”
“All right. But how are we to get the things, Fitz? Have you any money?”
“I’ve got gold; that’s just as good.”
“Gold?”
“Yes. Look here.”
The goblin took a bag of yellow nuggets from his pocket and emptied them out and shook them before the boy’s eyes.
“Is that gold?” Bob inquired, interested and not a little excited.
“Yes, to be sure,” Fitz Mee answered.
“Where did you get it?”
“In Goblinland.”
“Is there much of it there?”
“Bushels of it. These nuggets are as common there as pebbles are in your country.”
“Indeed!” the lad exclaimed, in wide-eyed wonder and admiration. “You goblins must be mighty rich.”
“We don’t put any value upon gold,” was the complacent reply; “we never use it at home.”
Bob was thoughtfully silent for some seconds.
“What’re you thinking about?” his companion inquired with a shrewd and cunning smile.
“Thinking how rich I can be when I go back home,” was the a frank admission. Then abruptly: “What’s that coming down the road yonder, Fitz?”