Part 21 (1/2)

The men in the tossing and bobbing motor boat heard, and at once began, one after the other, to clamber up the rope. There were five of them, as could be seen in the glare of the light, and Tom, as he watched, wondered what they were doing out in the terrific storm at that early hour of the morning, and with a lone woman.

”Stand by to help her, Koku!” called Ned to the giant.

”I help,” was the giant's simple reply, and as the woman's head came above the rail, over which the rope ran, Koku, leaning forward, raised her in his powerful arms, and set her carefully on the deck.

”Come into the cabin, please,” Ned called to her. ”Come in out of the wet.”

”Oh, it seems a miracle that we are saved!” the woman gasped, as, rain-drenched and wind-tossed, she staggered toward the door which Tom had opened by means of a lever in the pilot house. The young inventor had his hands full, manipulating the airs.h.i.+p so as to keep it above the motor boat, and not bring too great a strain on the rope.

The woman pa.s.sed into the cabin, which was between the motor room and the pilot house, and Ned saw her throw herself on her knees, and offer up a fervent prayer of thanksgiving. Then, springing to her feet, she cried:

”My husband? Is he safe? Can you save him? Oh, how wonderful that this airs.h.i.+p came in answer to our appeals to Providence. Whose is it?”

Before Ned got a chance to answer her, as she came to the door of the motor room, a man's voice called:

”My wife! Is she safe?”

”Yes, here I am,” replied the woman, and a moment later the two were in each other's arms.

”The others; are they safe?” gasped the woman, after a pause.

”Yes,” replied the man. ”They are coming up the rope. Oh, what a wonderful rescue! And that giant man who lifted us up on deck! Oh, do you recall in Africa how we were also rescued by airs.h.i.+p--”

”Come on now, I got you!” interrupted the voice of Koku out on the after deck, and there was a series of thumps that told when he had lifted the men over the rail, and set them down.

”All saved!” cried the giant at last.

”Then cut the rope!” shouted Tom. ”We've got to get out of this, for it's growing worse!”

There was the sound of a hatchet blow, and the airs.h.i.+p shot upward.

Into the cabin came the dripping figures of the other men, and Ned, as he stood by the great searchlight, felt a wave of wonder sweep over him as he listened to the voices of the first man and woman.

He knew he had heard them before, and, when he listened to the remark about a rescue by airs.h.i.+p, in Africa, a flood of memory came to him.

”Can it be possible that these are the same missionaries whom Tom and I rescued from the red pygmies?” he murmured. ”I must get a look at them.”

”Our boat, it is gone I suppose,” remarked one of the other men, coming into the motor room.

”I'm afraid so,” answered Ned, as he played the light on the doomed craft. Even as he did so he saw a great wave engulf her, and, a moment later she sank. ”She's gone,” he said softly.

”Too bad!” exclaimed the man. ”She was a fine little craft. But how in the world did you happen along to rescue us? Whose airs.h.i.+p is this?”

”Tom Swift's,” answered Ned, and, at the sound of the name the woman uttered a cry, as she rushed into the motor room.

”Tom Swift!” she exclaimed. ”Where is he? Oh, can it be possible that it is the same Tom Swift that rescued us in Africa?”

”I think it is, Mrs. Illingway,” spoke Ned quietly, for he now recognized the missionary, though he wondered what she and her husband were doing so far from the Dark Continent.

”Oh, I know you--you're Ned Newton--Tom's chum! Oh, I am so glad!

Where is Tom?”