Chapter XIII. Seeking a Quarrel

There was an ominous silence in the engine room, following the flash and the report. The young inventor took in every bit of machinery in a quick glance, and he saw at once that the main dynamo and magneto had short-circuited, and gone out of commission. Almost instantly the airship began to sink, for the propellers had ceased revolving.

"Bless my barograph!" cried Mr. Damon, appearing on the scene. "We're sinking, Tom!"

"It's all right," answered our hero calmly. "It's a bad accident, and may delay us, but there's no danger. Ned, start up the gas machine," for they were progressing as an aeroplane then. "Start that up, and we'll drift along as a dirigible."

"Of course! Why didn't I think of that!" exclaimed Ned, somewhat provoked at his own want of thought. The airship was going down rapidly, but it was the work of but a moment to start the generator, and then the earthward motion was checked.

"We'll have to take our chance of being blown to France," remarked Tom, as he went over to look at the broken electrical machinery. "But we ought to fetch the coast by morning with this wind. Lucky it's blowing our way."

"Then you can't use the propellers?" asked Mr. Petrofsky.

"No," replied Tom, "but if we get to France I can easily repair this break. It's the platinum bearings again. I do hope we'll locate that lost mine, for I need a supply of good reliable metal.

"Then we'll have to land in France?" asked the Russian, and he seemed a trifle uneasy.

"Yes," answered Tom. "Don't you want to?"

"Well, I was thinking of our safety."

"Bless my silk hat!" cried Mr. Damon. "Where is the danger of landing there? I rather hoped we could spend some time in Paris."

"There is no particular danger, unless it be comes known that I am an escaped exile, and that we are on our way to Siberia to rescue another one, and try to find the platinum mine. Then we would be in danger."

"But how are they to know it?" asked Ned, who had come back from the gas machine.

"France, especially in Paris and the larger cities, is a hot-bed of political spies," answered Mr. Petrofsky. Russia has many there on the secret police, and while the objectors to the Czar's government are also there, they could do little to help us."

"I guess they won't find out about us unless we give it away," was Tom's opinion.

"I'm afraid they will," was the reply of the Russian. "Undoubtedly word has been cabled by the spies who annoyed us in Shopton, that we are on our way over here. Of course they can't tell where we might land, but as soon as we do land the news will be flashed all over, and the word will come back that we