Читать книгу Frank Reade Jr.'s Air Wonder, The "Kite"; Or, A Six Weeks' Flight Over the Andes - Luis Senarens - Страница 3

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It was near the close of a beautiful day in June, and the declining sun shed its radiance softly over the crags and heights of the Andes Mountains in the heart of Peru.

High up in the heart of the hills was a flat shelf of rock projecting from the cliff, and far out over an enormous descent of a thousand feet to depths below.

Upon the verge of this shelf of rock a fearful scene was being enacted.

Two men were there engaged in a fearful death struggle. Locked in each other’s embrace, they fought and panted like veritable fiends.

They were both Americans. On their way over the great Southern Cardilleros they had a falling out, and a battle to the death was the result.

One was tall and supple, with powerful limbs and deep chest. The other was thin and slender, and rather sickly-looking, yet he fought with consummate skill and absolute fearlessness.

“Confound you, Royal Harding! You shall never live to reap the benefit of our discovery of the treasure cave of the Incas. It is mine—all mine—and I shall return to New York and claim the heart and hand of beautiful Mabel Dane—not you.”

“Never, Lester Vane! Your plans shall never win success. A great and just God will never permit it.”

“Worm! I can crush you as I would a reed!”

“I shall fight to the last.”

“Over the precipice with you!”

Fiercely they fought. The larger man, who was the first speaker, made a tremendous effort, and suddenly lifted the other like a feather.

One moment he hovered in mid-air, and then over the precipice he went.

A wild, awful cry of anguish and despair went up from the slight man. Down over the edge he went.

Out of sight he flashed. A yell of fiendish delight escaped the victor.

He rushed to the edge and looked over.

He had expected to see the mangled form of his victim at the bottom of the cliff.

But to his surprise he saw him suspended in mid-air fully a hundred feet below.

In his sliding descent he had managed to grasp a scrub of spruce which projected from the wall of the cliff.

To this he clung.

It was certainly a close call. His life was spared for the moment. But what more awful than his present position.

The white, awe-struck, upturned countenance met the gaze of Lester Vane.

“For mercy’s sake, Lester, do not let me die. Save me!”

A mocking laugh pealed from the villain’s lips.

In his hand there was a huge stone with which he had intended to dash his victim from his slender perch.

But second thought restrained him.

“I was about to dash you from that hold!” he hissed, “but that would be only a merciful ending of your agonies. I shall leave you to hang there until your strength gives out and you are obliged to fall of your own accord. May your thoughts be pleasant and your end a happy one.”

“Villain!” groaned Harding with awful terror. “You do not mean that!”

“Don’t I?”

“You cannot be so inhuman!”

“Ha! you do not know me. Stay there and think of me with the Incas’ treasure on my way to New York to claim Mabel Dane. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Wretch! Monster!” screamed Harding in an insane manner. “You will never do that. No, no, no! I appeal to your sense of right and humanity. Be just!”

But his words were wasted, spent upon empty air.

Vane had disappeared, gliding away noiselessly among the mountain crags.

The stillness of death was upon the defile. Far above a solitary vulture wheeled in airy echelon as if waiting to feast upon a certain victim.

Awful horror was upon Harding.

He clung to the scrub with an energy born of despair.

He dared not cast his glance downward for fear he would relax his grip and fall.

Fearful thoughts coursed through his fevered brain.

Awful agonies he suffered in that moment, and the end seemed certain to be death. Several times the frenzy of despair nigh overcame him and he almost relaxed his grip and fell.

“Oh, God!” he moaned, “am I to die thus? Is this to be my fate?”

And yet what was to save him?

The region seemed utterly deserted. There seemed not the least chance of his rescue being effected, for there were probably no human beings other than himself and Vane within many miles of the place.

The story of the presence of the two men in these parts was a brief one.

They had met in Callao and fraternized. As it chanced both were from New York.

Harding was in love with a young lady of good family in York.

He carried Mabel Dane’s picture with him, and in an unsuspecting moment showed it to Vane.

The latter, a fellow of fiery impulse, at once fell in love with the portrait, and instinctively became jealous of Harding.

In the blackness of his heart he was resolved to cut his friend out and win the girl whom he had never seen as his own.

Harding never suspected him.

He took a fancy to Vane and confided to him a valuable secret.

This was the supposed location of an Incas treasure far up in the Andes. Arrangements were quickly made, and the two men set out with the purpose of securing the treasure.

For weeks they wandered about through the wilds.

Then success crowned their efforts.

A cavern was found deep in the mountains in which golden images and plate were buried. The value of the buried treasure was enormous.

It made rich men of both of them.

It seemed as if life had opened up before them with new and glowing prospects. The delirium of the gold seeker was upon them.

But after a time this wore away in part, and practical questions began to assert themselves.

How were they to transport their wealth to civilization?

It certainly was of no use to them here. It was a problem which required some little study to solve.

“I will tell you,” said Vane, finally. “Let us go to Quito and procure a pack train of mules. We can transport the treasure to some point on the coast, and there we may find a trading vessel on which we may embark for the United States.”

“Your plan is to purchase the vessel?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” agreed Harding. “It shall be as you say. We will do that.”

Thus the plan was made.

No doubt it would have been successful.

But Lester Vane had in his heart a dark and dreadful purpose. His selfish, covetous nature would not admit of a generous division of the treasure.

His whole soul was filled with the one purpose to appropriate the whole wealth to himself, and with it to return to New York and win the heart of Mabel Dane.

But to do this it was necessary to dispose of Harding.

He saw but one way to do this.

Lester Vane was cold, calculating and unscrupulous. He determined to murder his companion outright.

With his mind made up to do this, he suddenly halted Harding near the brow of the precipice, and coolly informed him of the fact.

He believed that as he was much stronger he could easily overcome the weaker man.

Harding was horrified with the discovery that his companion was this kind of a man.

But he was not disposed to yield to such a fate without a struggle.

So he made a brave and a resolute fight, as the reader has seen.

But the villain triumphed, and we now see Royal Harding clinging vainly to the face of the precipice, with death in its most awful form yawning below him.

It did not seem as if any human power could save him.

Lester Vane was making his way with all haste to Quito.

He would charter a vessel, have the treasure transported to the coast, and sail away to the United States.

As Harding thought of all this he groaned with awful horror and despair.

“Oh,” he moaned; “is this to be my unkind fate? Will nothing save me?”

Then he thought of Mabel Dane; and his eyes flashed.

“And he thinks he can win her heart!” he muttered, “but he will learn better when he meets her. Mabel is too sweet and true to ever play me false!”

Then he began desperately to consider every possible chance of escape.

The distance to the bottom of the gorge was frightful.

The fall would be sure to dash the life from his body.

There was no way of climbing down.

The descent was sheer and precipitous, and jagged rocks were below. Neither could he hope to retain his present position long.

The tax upon the scrub was a severe one, and it had already begun to yield.

At any moment it was apt to give way. An awful horror overcame Royal Harding.

“Oh,” he wailed; “will the villain triumph in this manner? Am I to be thus consigned to death?”

It was the prayer of a despairing soul, and that it found speedy answer seemed an assured fact.

For suddenly Harding felt a shadow pass between him and the dying rays of the sun.

There was a peculiar whirring sound like the movement of many wings, and he looked up to behold a stunning spectacle.

A huge ship seemed floating in the air above him. There it was, hull and masts, and bowsprit, decks and all.

For a moment Harding thought it the effect of a disordered mind.

But he pulled himself together and gazed hard at the spectacle.

Then he saw beyond a doubt that it was truly an air-ship, and upon the bow he read in gilt letters:

“THE KITE,

“Frank Reade, Jr.”

A wild, thrilling cry went up from Royal Harding’s lips.

“Saved, saved!” he cried. “It is Frank Reade, Jr., the wonderful young inventor, and one of his air-ships. Saved, thank God!”

Harding had not been so long absent from the world of civilization that he had not heard of Frank Reade, Jr., and his wonderful inventions.

He had read the exploits of the young inventor and was well familiar with his history.

He knew that Frank Reade, Jr., was a young and handsome fellow of the rarest gifts, whose home was in a beautiful American city called Readestown.

Air-ships were the hobby of this famous young inventor, and he had taken many trips about the world, accompanied by two faithful servants, an Irishman named Barney O’Shea and a negro called Pomp.

These were now at the rail of the air-ship, and the Celt shouted:

“Howld fast, sor! Shure it’s to your rescue we’ll be afther coming!”