Chapter 2 Tom Swift and His Airline Express by Victor Appleton
WAITING IN THE DARK
Just how long Tom Swift remained unconscious he himself did not know. It may have been several hours, for when he came to himself he felt a curious stiffness about his muscles as if he had lain for some time on the damp ground.
And he was on the ground—a fact he ascertained by feeling about with his hands, his fingers encountering damp, packed earth and the smooth surface of stones set in the soil.
“Where in the world am I, and what happened?” thought Tom, as soon as he could collect his senses enough to do any thinking. “Gee, but I sure do feel queer!”
There was a sickish taste in his mouth—a sense of sweetness, such as he remembered followed a slight operation he had undergone some years before when an anæsthetic had been given him.
“They doped me all right—that’s what they did,” mused Tom. “Ether, chloroform, or something like that. It knocked me out. But I’m beginning to feel all right again—no headache or anything like that. But what does it all mean, and where am I?”
Those were questions not easily answered.
While Tom Swift is trying to collect his senses and to remember, in their sequence, the events which led up to his queer predicament, may I take just a moment of your time, if you are a new reader, to tell you who Tom was?
The first book of this series, “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle,” introduces you to the young inventor. His father, Barton Swift, was a widower, living in the old homestead at Shopton on Lake Carlopa. The Swift home was on the outskirts of the town and in a building not far from the house Barton Swift began work on a series of inventions which were destined to make him and his son famous. Tom’s mother was dead, but Mrs. Baggert, the housekeeper, looked well after the material welfare of Tom and his father.
In due time Tom began to follow in his father’s footsteps, working at small inventions until, when a sturdy youth, he became possessed of a motorcycle. He bought the machine of an eccentric individual named Wakefield Damon, who lived in the neighboring town of Waterfield. Mr. Damon set out to learn to ride his new machine.
“But bless my porous plaster!” the queer man would exclaim in telling the story, “I never thought the contraption was going to climb trees!”
Which it did, or tried to, because Mr. Damon did not know how to manage it. The result was that the rider was injured and the motorcycle badly smashed and Tom, near whose home the accident occurred, became the owner of the machine.
How he repaired it, added some improvements, and what he did with the machine are fully set forth in the book. It was the beginning of a long friendship with Mr. Damon, and also the real start of Tom’s inventive career.
Those of you who have followed him in his successes, from his motor boat to “Tom Swift’s Chest of Secrets,”—the volume immediately preceding this one—need not be told of Tom’s activities. He had made some wonderful pieces of apparatus and had had some startling adventures. In some of these his father and Mr. Damon had shared. So, also, had Ned Newton, Tom’s closest friend and now the treasurer of the Swift Construction Company.
Mary Nestor, of whom Ned had spoken, was a beautiful girl whom Tom hoped to marry some day, and Ned Newton was interested in a similar manner in Mary’s friend, Helen Morton.
As Tom sat there in the darkness, trying to puzzle out where he was and how he had gotten there, his thought flashed to Mary.
“I wonder what she’ll think?” he mused. “I’d better get to a telephone and explain. Let’s see. I was coming back from town and I saw some fellow sneaking along behind the bushes. I met Ned. I went down a flight of stairs in a hole—though how they could be there and I not know it, is more than I can fathom. Then they doped me. But who did it and why, I don’t know. I’ll soon find out, though. Wonder how long I’ve been here? Feels like a week, I’m so stiff. But I’m not hurt, thank goodness!”
Tom stretched out his arms in the darkness. They responded to the action of his muscles. But when he tried to get up and walk—well, he simply could not!
“Chained fast!” cried Tom, aloud. His hands had sought his left ankle when he found that something held him fast there, and his fingers had come in contact with a chain.
For a moment he felt a sinking sensation. To be chained fast in the dark, at the bottom of some cave or dungeon, located he knew not where, was enough to take the heart out of any one. But not for long did Tom Swift give way to despair.
He gave a vigorous tug to the chain about his ankle. After all, it might only be lying across it or loosely twisted. But it needed only one effort on his part to loosen the links to let him know that he was bound fast. Whoever had put the chain on his ankle had done so with serious intentions of holding the young inventor captive.
“Well, this is worse and more of it!” he mused grimly. “What does it all mean? It can’t be a plot to kidnap me. No one knew I was coming across the lots, for I didn’t know it myself until the last minute. And seeing that man sneaking along, discovering the secret stairs—it was all a series of accidents. Though it’s likely to prove a serious accident for me if I can’t get loose.”
Tom was nothing if not practical, and first he felt about with his hands to determine the exact nature of what it was that held him fast. He discovered, by the sense of touch, that something in the nature of a handcuff was snapped about his ankle. To this cuff, or leg-iron, was attached a chain. By following this, link by link, Tom found that the chain was made fast to a ring of iron which, in turn, was sunk into the stone side wall of the cave or tunnel in which he now found himself.
How far he was removed from the bottom of the flight of secret steps where he had been made unconscious, he did not know, any more than he knew where he was.
Having discovered what it was that held him fast and the nature of the chain and its fastenings, Tom, who had risen to his feet, stood silent a moment, listening. It was very black and very still in the cave, if such it was, and from the earthy, damp smell he concluded that he must be underground, or at least in some vault or cellar.
By test Tom found that he could move about five feet, such being the length of the chain. The leg-iron had been snapped or riveted about his ankle outside of his trousers. It was not tight enough to cause any pain, but it was snug enough to be impossible of removal.
“They’ve got me as tight as an animal in a trap!” grimly exclaimed the youth, when, by a series of tugs, he ascertained how securely the end of the chain was fast in the rocky wall. “Just like a trap, or a prisoner in an old-time dungeon!” bitterly reflected the young man. “All it needs to make a moving picture film is some beautiful maiden to come to my rescue with a file——”
Tom’s spoken words (for he was talking aloud to himself) came to a sudden end as he clapped a hand to the pocket of his coat.
“I’ve got ’em!” he fairly shouted, and he drew out a small paper parcel in which were two keen files. They were part of the purchases made just before stumbling on the mysterious man and finding the steps in the queer opening.
“Files—the hardest and best made!” he told himself. “They’ll cut through anything but a diamond. Luck’s with me, after all. They didn’t know I had these! Oh, boy!”
Everything seemed changed now! Though he was held fast, though he was in some secret dungeon, hope sang a song of joy in his heart.
For a moment Tom debated with himself as to the best end of the chain at which to begin filing. It would be more comfortable with that leg-iron off his ankle, but by feeling it in the darkness he could tell that it was broad and thick. It would take some time for even the keen, hard file to cut through it.
“I’ll file through one of the links close to the leg-iron,” decided Tom. “That won’t leave much to carry around, and it won’t take long to cut through a link—that is, unless they’re made of case-hardened steel.”
But the chain was of the ordinary sort, made of soft iron, and it did not take the young inventor long, practiced as he was in the use of tools, to file apart one of the links. True it was not easy in the darkness, and, more than once, the file slipped and cut Tom’s hands or fingers, for he changed from left to right and back to left in using the file, having taught himself to be ambidextrous in many operations.
At last he could feel that the link was nearly severed and then, inserting the small ends of the two files in it, he pried them apart. This leverage broke the thin remaining bit of iron and Tom was free.
That is, he was free to move about as he pleased, but he was still within the dark cave, and where it was he could not imagine.
“I’ve got to feel my way about,” he told himself. “It’s as dark as the inside of a pocket.”
So dark was it that Tom had to tread cautiously and with outstretched hands lest he bump into some obstruction. Whether he was moving toward the steps down which he had come or in the opposite direction, Tom had no means of knowing. His sense of touch alone guided him.
He could feel that he was walking along a tunnel, but the size of it he could only guess at. Then, suddenly, on making an elbow turn, he saw, glimmering in the distance, a faint light. It was the light of day, Tom knew, and by that he realized that he had been held captive all night.
“That makes it bad,” he mused. “Dad will have done a lot of worrying about me, I’m afraid. But I guess I’ll soon be out of here.”
Then, to his ears, came the murmur of voices—voices strange to him. So faint was the light in the distance that it was of no service to him where he stood waiting in the darkness; waiting for he knew not what.
The voices increased in loudness, showing that the speakers were approaching. Then he heard footsteps echoing strangely in the hollow tunnel.
“If there’s going to be a fight I’d better get ready for it,” Tom told himself fiercely. He stooped and began feeling about on the ground for a loose rock or a club. But he could find nothing. Then like a flash it came to him.
“One of the files! They’re pretty sharp on the handle end. As good as a knife! I’ll use it like a knife if I have to,” he mused desperately.
He drew one of the files from his pocket, grasped it firmly, and waited in the darkness for what was to happen next.