Adventure Magazine Cover — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

928 ment of his attack on Ostermann was still seething in his veins, buoying him up. He saw that he must succeed in cajoling him away from the scene of the tragedy, from the dramatic surroundings and the hideous, compelling magnet of the murdéred man’s still staring, menacing eyes. Otherwise, the scale would tip down the wrong side, and England would lose the one man who could be trusted to initiate and educate her airmen in the mysteries and colossal powers of Gray Ghost and her seventy duplicates. The one man who was cognizant of Alsopp Oster- mann’s methods, of numberless secrets, of an amount of dangerous knowledge which would automatically become more danger- ous if left to chance discovery! ““My dear Hafner, you’ve got to come back with Jacobs and me for your own sake!” he said soothingly, patting the man’s arnias he spoke. “I know as well as you do that you’re the only man who is capable of being the future skipper of Gray Ghost, and the Government will be the first to realize the fact and appoint you. Why, they will want you to act as instructor probably! It’s not likely they’ll risk wrecking Gray Ghost by giving her into the charge of some fellow who doesn’t know the first thing about her! “No, no, they’ll want you, Hafner, and I'll see to it they treat you well. After all, they’re no fools, and it would be cutting off their noses to spite their faces if they tried to do without you. As to what has hap- pened to that fiend Ostermann—well, the only thing that can be said about it is that it’s a very fortunate and desirable thing for us all that it did happen! And now I have persuaded you that Iam only asking you to come back to the castle as a temporary pre- caution? It is madness for us to stay here and run the risk of Sir Stephen or the work- men returning. Will you come?” Hafner’s eyes were still sullen and suspi- cious, but he suffered Algy to lead him away into the passage. | “Oh, I'll come with yer now—but, re- member, if they don’t hush up this ’ere little deal of mine with Ostermann and let me go free they’ll regret it! I'll see to it, mind that! If they don’t let me show ’em how it’s me, and me alone, can manage Gray Ghost, I'll be revenged on them the same as I was on im! Mind that! You talk about their payin’ me well an’ being obliged an’ all that, but ’ow do I know it’s right? If it Adventure ain’t, mind yer, I’ll get at Gray Ghost the same as I got at ’im, no matter where you hide ’er, and if I do they’ll be left sucking a dry orange! Tell ’em that from me! Tell that, young sir, and tell ’em I mean it! I can destroy Gray Ghost within a minute, and I’d do it and die happy with ’er rather than leave ’er! So that’s plain, ain’t it?” , keep it quiet and did all they could to hush the thing up. There was such a lot to explain, and explanations were obviously awkward, and they were afraid that the Jingo element might lead the cry for war, which was the last thing that was wanted— even with such weapons—by the Govern- ment. But, in spite of all precautions, things leaked out. The wildest reports got abroad and the presence of men-o’-war keeping ceaseless, vigilant guard over the entrance to the caves, the posse of police ever scouring the moors and searching the castle, and the gangs of foreign workmen and mechanics who were daily beaten from cover and taken away in custody, confirmed and strengthened them. Then on the top of the rumors came the news of Sir Stephen Brett’s suicide, and, to crown all, there came a day in which all England rushed out of doors to watch a stately fleet of seventy giant-winged air- ships of war sail through the heavens in two long, unswerving lines. Seventy cloud-gray torpedo-nosed {airships manned by crews, every man of whom had been trained and drilled by Silas Hafner! And that he had done his work well was evident in the way the two long lines of ships kept to their course and rose and fell at the word of com- mand. The fleet of aerial warships which now belonged to England and made her omnipotent, all-powerful, safe against the world! To Sir Dean Densham they raised a mighty monument, and it reared its height into the skies in memory of a man who gave his life for his country. Of Algy Brett they made a hero, and on the day he and poor Carlile Darien’s sister, Eva, were married they cheered him to the echo, and presented him with a little model of a luminously gray, cigar-shaped airship in full flight, and bearing in letters of gold on the base the little name, Gray Ghost. cComiclbooks CO