“Bless my shoe laces!  Don’t suggest such a thing,” begged Mr. Damon, as he recalled the strenuous times when the dwarfs held the missionaries captive.

It was necessary to lay in some stores and provisions, and for this reason Tom could not at once head the airship for the African jungles.  As she remained at anchor, just outside the city, crowds of Swiss people came out to look at the wonderful craft.  But Tom and his companions took care that no one got aboard, and they kept a strict lookout for Americans, or Englishmen, thinking perhaps that Mr. Eckert, or the spy, might try to get the camera.  However, they did not see them, and a few days after the receipt of the message from Mr. Period, having stocked up, they rose high into the air, and set out to cross the Mediterranean Sea for Africa.  Tom laid a route over Tripoli, the Sahara Desert, the French Congo, and so into the Congo Free State.  In his telegram, Mr. Period had said that the expected uprising was to take place near Stanley Falls, on the Congo River.

“And supposing it does not happen?” asked Mr. Damon.  “What if the natives don’t fight, Tom?  You’ll have your trip for nothing, and Will run a lot of risk besides.”

“It’s one of the chances I’m taking,” replied the young inventor, and truly, as he thought of it, he realized that the perils of the moving picture business were greater than he had imagined.  Tom hoped to get a quick trip to the Congo, but, as they were sailing over the big desert, there was an accident to the main motor, and the airship suddenly began shooting toward the sands.  She was easily brought up, by means of the gas bags, and allowed to settle gently to the ground, in the vicinity of a large oasis.  But, when Tom looked at the broken machinery, he said: 

“This means a week’s delay.  It will take that, and longer, to fix it so we can go on.”

“Too bad!” exclaimed Mr. Nestor.  “The war may be over when we get there.  But it can’t be helped.”

It took Tom and his friends even longer than he had thought to make the repairs.  In the meanwhile they camped in the desert place, which was far from being unpleasant.  Occasionally a caravan halted there, but, for the most part, they were alone.

“No danger of Eckert, or any of his spies coming here, I guess,” said Tom grimly as he blew on a portable forge, to weld two pieces of iron together.

In due time they were again on the wing, and without further incident they were soon in the vicinity of Stanley Falls.  They managed to locate a village where there were some American missionaries established.  They were friends of Mr. and Mrs. Illington, the missionaries whom Tom had saved from the red pygmies, as told in the “Electric Rifle” volume of this series, and they made our hero and his friends welcome.

“Is it true?” asked Tom, of the missionaries who lived not far from Stanley Falls, “that there is to be a native battle?  Or are we too late for it?”