“Thank heaven you came before it was too late.”—Page 108

The newspapers announced in large type that the Kronprinzessin Emilie, the crack flyer of the Bremen-American line, was to carry from the United States to Germany the vast sum of $6,000,000 in bullion. On her sailing day the dock, from which she was to start on what destined to prove the most eventful voyage ever made since men first went down to the sea in ships, was jammed with gaping crowds. They interfered with the passengers, and employees of the company had to jostle their way among them as best they could.

6 The thought of the vast fortune stowed within the tall, steel sides of the liner had attracted them, although what they expected to see of it was difficult to imagine. But just as a crowd will gather outside a prison where some notorious malefactor is confined, feasting their eyes on its gray walls without hope of seeing the lawbreaker himself, so the throngs on the Kronprinzessin Emilie’s pier indulged their curiosity by staring at the colossal casket that held such an enormous fortune.

Among those who had to win their way through the crowd almost by main force, were two tanned, broad-shouldered youths carrying suitcases and handbags.

“My, what a mob, Jack!” exclaimed one of them, elbowing himself between a stout man who was gazing fixedly at the vessel’s side—and showed no disposition to move—and an equally corpulent woman whose mouth was wide open and whose eyes bulged as if she almost expected to see the ship gold-plated instead of black.

7 “Yes, gold’s a great magnet even if it is stowed away inside the specie room of a steamer,” replied Jack Ready. “We ought to feel like millionaires ourselves, Bill, sailing on such a ship.”

“A sort of vacation de luxe,” laughed Bill Raynor. “What a chance for the buccaneers of the old days if they could only come to life again. Then there would be real adventure in sailing on the Kronprinzessin.”

“I guess we’ve had about all the adventure we want for a time, Bill,” replied Jack, as they finally gained the gang-plank and two white-coated, gilt-buttoned stewards grabbed their hand baggage. “The Pacific and New Guinea provided what you might call ‘an ample sufficiency’ for me in that line.”

“We earned this holiday, that’s one thing sure,” agreed Bill, “and the best part of it is that the sale of those pearls gave us enough funds for a holiday abroad without putting too much of a crimp in our bank accounts.”

He referred to the pearls the boys’ native 8 chums in the Pamatou Islands in the South Pacific had presented them with, after their narrow escape from death in the sea-cave and the subsequent wreck on a coral reef, during the memorable Pacific voyage and adventures, which were described in detail in the volume of this series which immediately preceded the present book. This volume was called, “The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Pacific.”

In the first book of this series, which was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic,” we were introduced to Jack Ready, then the young wireless operator of the big tank steamer Ajax. His chum, Bill Raynor, was a junior engineer of that craft. A strong friendship sprang up between the two lads, which their subsequent adventures on that voyage cemented into a lasting affection.

Jack also won the approval of Jacob Jukes, head of the great shipping combine that owned the Ajax and a vast fleet of craft, both passenger and freight, besides, by his masterly handling of 9 a difficult situation when the millionaire shipping-man’s yacht burned in mid-Atlantic.

This incident, and others which proved that the young wireless man was level-headed and cool, even in the worst emergency, resulted in his being transferred to the passenger service on board the West Indian service craft, the Tropic Queen. The thrilling events that accompanied the vessel’s last voyage were set forth in the second volume of the Ocean Wireless Boys series, entitled, “The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner.”

Still another book related how Jack and his chum took to the seas again on different vessels, only to be reunited in the strangest manner. “The Ocean Wireless Boys of the Iceberg Patrol,” as this was named, told something of the work of the craft detailed by Uncle Sam to the duty of patrolling northern seas, sending wireless warnings of icebergs to trans-Atlantic liners—a work of infinite usefulness which, had it been instituted earlier, might have averted the 10 loss of the Titanic, the greatest marine disaster in the history of the world. This was followed by an account of the exciting Pacific adventures already referred to.

The boys, and their employer, Mr. Jukes, agreed with them, and felt that after their experiences in the South Seas with the millionaire’s expedition in search of his lost brother, they had earned a holiday; and their determination to tour Europe was the outcome.

But even as they stepped on board the “Gold Ship,” the machinery of war was beginning to rumble in Europe, and before many hours had passed, the storm of well-nigh universal war was destined to begin. Of this, of course, they had no inkling, as they busied themselves in establishing their belongings in their main-deck cabin. These preparations had hardly been completed when the siren boomed warningly, and a tremor ran through the big vessel. As she backed out of her pier, the brass band began to play and the crowds on the decks, and on the 11 docks, waved wildly, cheered and shouted last messages which, by no possibility, could have been heard above the din.

“Well, off at last, Jack,” said Raynor, entwining Jack’s elbow in his own as the two leaned, side by side, on the railing, bidding good-bye to New York’s wonderful skyscraper skyline as it slid past. “How does it feel to be a passenger?”

Jack’s eyes sought the lofty wireless aerials swung far above them between the two masts.

“It feels mighty odd to think of somebody else sending out the T. R.” he said slowly, naming the wireless method of saying “Good-bye,” on sailing.

“Well, I never saw such a fellow!” exclaimed Raynor. “For goodness’ sake forget your everlasting coherers and keys and converters and the rest of them and enjoy taking life easy. But—hullo!” he broke off, “there’s someone we know.”

Approaching them was a dapper little man, with a neat black moustache and dressed in a careful, almost dignified manner.

12 “Why, it’s Raymond de Garros, that French aviator we saved from the sea off Florida when we were on the old Tropic Queen!” exclaimed Jack.

“That’s the man. But what in the world is he doing here? I thought he was in France organizing an aeroplane corps for the army.”

“So did I. The newspapers have had several despatches about his work. But we shall soon find out about the reason for his being on board.”

A minute later they were warmly shaking hands with the little Frenchman, who, with many gesticulations and twirlings of his moustache, assured them how glad he was to “greet zee two brave boys zat save my life from zee sea.”

“You’re the last person we expected to see,” said Jack, when first greetings were over. “We didn’t even know you were in America.”

The little Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and looked about him uneasily. Then he buttonholed the boys confidentially.

13 “No one know zat I am here but my government,” he said in low tones.

“You are on a secret mission of some kind?” asked Jack.

“Can I trust you to keep somethings to yourselves if I tell you what I am do in Amerique?” asked the aviator.

“Of course, but if you don’t wish—— I didn’t mean to appear inquisitive,” Jack hastened to say.

“Zat is all right, my friend!” exclaimed de Garros. “You save my life. I should be ungrateful if I seemed secretive wiz you. I have been in Amerique buying and shipping aeroplanes to France from one of your manufacturers.”

“But I thought France already had a powerful air fleet,” said Bill.

The little aviator’s next words were astonishing to the boys, who shared the common impression about the French strength in the air.

“Before many days are past we shall need all 14 and more aeroplanes than we have,” he said. “I wish we had twice as many. But I can say no more now. But my advice to you is to watch zee wireless closely. You are going abroad on pleasure?”

“Yes, we thought we’d earned a vacation,” said Jack.

The little Frenchman’s rejoinder was a shrug and a smile.

“Your vacation may be what you Americans call a ‘strenuous one,’” he said meaningly, and with an emphasis the boys could not fathom. “By the way, on board this ship I am Jules Campion. There are reasons for my real name being unknown for the present. Au revoir, I go to arrange my luggage. We shall meet again.”

And he was gone, leaving the boys to exchange puzzled glances.

“Vell, Yack Retty, you yust like to hang aroundt undt see me vurk, hein?”

Hans Poffer, the yellow-haired, red-cheeked wireless operator of the Kronprinzessin Emilie asked the question, on the afternoon of the third day out. Jack had discovered in young Poffer an acquaintance he had made in Antwerp when he was on board the Ajax, and had renewed the friendship, to Poffer’s great delight, for the German wireless man had had trouble with his instruments the first day out which Jack had adjusted for him.

Since that time Jack, to Bill Raynor’s amusement, had spent most of his time in the wireless room enjoying, as Poffer put it, “watching me work.” But there was another reason beside his 16 deep-seated interest in everything appertaining to his profession that made Jack haunt the Kronprinzessin’s wireless coop. De Garros, with whom he had had several conversations since their meeting on board, had repeatedly told him to be on the lookout for something “that would before long come over the wires.” Once, in discussing the boys’ plans for amusing themselves in Europe, the aviator had said meaningly, “if you ever get there.” But what he meant by these words he had steadfastly refused to explain, telling Jack that he would find out in good time.

“Me, if I gedt idt a holliday,” said Poffer, after greeting Jack a day later, “I go by as far avay from der vireless as I couldt gedt idt. I gedt sick undt tired hearing idt all day ‘tick-tick’ undt sending idt all day der same ‘tick-tick’ alretty. Donner! I’m hungry again. Holdt idt mein key a minute vile I gedt idt mineself a bite.”

The stout German slipped his wireless “ears” 17 from his head and extended them to Jack, who, good-naturedly, took them. Then he made off for his cabin where he kept constantly a stock of provisions to satisfy his appetite between meals.

“Well, I’m a fine chump,” smiled Jack, as he slipped into Hans’ vacant chair. “No wonder Bill says I’m crazy. Off for a holiday and the first thing I know I find myself back on the job. Hullo, here’s a message coming. K. P. E., that’s our call. Funny sort of sending, too. Doesn’t sound like a commercial operator.”

Jack crackled out a reply.

“This is the Kronprinzessin Emilie,” he flashed back; “what do you want?”

“Tell your captain to lie to in his present position till further orders,” came the reply.

“Well, I like your nerve,” flashed back Jack, thinking somebody was trying to play a wireless joke on him. “Don’t you know we are carrying the European mails from New York? You stick around where you are and we may bump into you on the way back again.”

18 “Never mind about that. Obey orders at once,” came back bruskly.

“Say, never mind that comedy,” implored Jack. “I’m busy. Ring off.”

“No trifling there, young man,” was flashed back. “This is the British cruiser Essex. We want to overhaul you.”

“But you can’t stop a mail steamer.”

“In this case we can. War has been declared by England upon Germany and Austria. Lay to or it will be the worse for you.”

A step sounded behind Jack. He turned quickly, thinking it was someone who wanted to send a message, in which case he was anxious to “cut out” the man he thought was playing a senseless joke on him. The newcomer was de Garros.

“Ah, sitting at zee wire, eh? I suppose our always hungry Teutonic friend iz taking ze light lunch somewhere. Ah, any news? I saw you working ze key as I came in.”

“No news since I came on,” said Jack, 19 carelessly. “I was just trying to convince some deep sea joker that he couldn’t fool me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, somebody just flashed a message to the ship that they were the British cruiser Essex and that war had been declared between England and Germany and——”

He got no further. De Garros’s hands flew out and seized his shoulders.

“Zat was no joke, mon ami,” he exclaimed; “it was zee truth.”

“The truth? How do you know?” asked the naturally astonished Jack.

“It has been in zee air for months in diplomatic circles. I thought zee declaration would have come before this. It was for that that I was in Amerique buying aeroplanes.”

“What, is France in this, too?” demanded the astonished Jack.

“Yes, and Russia also. Russia declared war two days ago. Then came France, zee second member of zee Triple Entente, as zee is called, 20 and now, as was expected, comes England to help against the German barbarians.”

“But how did you know all this?” demanded Jack. “There was nothing in the papers when we left New York, but something about a row between Austria and Servia.”

“Which caused all the trouble,” came the reply; “or, rather, zee match to zee powder. But zee ask me how I know zee declaration of war of Russia and France. I am not the only man on zee ship zat does. Captain Rollok, he knows, zee officers know, like me zey have been getting wireless messages in code. Zey have been warned to look out for English cruisers in case England joined France and Russia. Zis Gerrman ship with six million dollars in gold on board would be a fine prize for Great Britain. My friend, before many hours have passed, you are going to have some excitement.”

“Great gracious, then that message wasn’t a joke and that British cruiser may overhaul us and take all that bullion?”

21 “If she can catch us,—yes. She will also make prisoners of the Germans on board and take the ship to an English port.”

“What had I better do?”

“Here comes young Poffer now. Tell him of zee message and get it to zee captain at once. If we are caught we may be delayed indefinitely and zee haste is imperative with me at zee present time.”

The German wireless man entered the cabin, gnawing at a huge pretzel. At Jack’s information of the message that had come, he dropped it to the floor in his astonishment and stood staring for a moment.

“Himmel!” he exclaimed, when he found his voice. “Englandt is go var midt Yarmany! Undt a Bridish sheep chase us. Ach du lieber, if they catch us, Hans Poffer goes by a prison yet midt nudding to eat but bread undt vater——”

“Never mind about that now,” interrupted Jack quickly; “take that information to Captain 22 Rollok at once. Take it yourself. Don’t give it to a steward. If the passengers knew of this, there’d be a panic in a jiffy.”

Poffer, still with his mouth and eyes wide open, hurried off on his errand.

“Captain Rollok will probably come back himself,” declared de Garros, “and vee will be ordered out of the cabin. Ve had better go now. But vee must not say a word of zees till zee time comes. Vee have more as two thousand passengers on board and if zey zink a warship chase us,—sacre!”

Jack was lolling in a deck chair fifteen minutes later, still digesting the astonishing news that had come out of space, when a deck steward approached him and, with an air of caution, leant over the lad and said:

“Captain Rollok would like to see you in the wireless room at once, please.”

“Now what’s up?” wondered Jack, as greatly astonished by this message, he made his way to the radio cabin. “I guess I’m in for a call down for sitting in at the key. Poor Poffer, I’ll see that he doesn’t get into trouble if I can help it, and as for me—I’m a passenger now and captains have no terrors for me.”

These thoughts occupied him as far as his destination. Within the cabin were Captain 24 Rollok, a giant of a man, with a fresh complexion and huge blond beard, one of his officers and Hans Pollak, the latter looking in fear of his life as the big captain berated him, in German, with force and vigor. As Jack entered the cabin, the great bulk of the captain swung round on him.

“So you are de young mans who sits in at der vireless vile dis cabbage-head goes stuffing himself midt pretzels, is it?” he demanded, with what appeared great severity, but with an underlying twinkle in his eyes.

Jack contented himself with nodding and a brief admission that he had taken Poffer’s place at the key while the latter refreshed himself. He half-expected an outburst from the big German but, to his astonishment, the captain clapped him on the back with a force that almost knocked him off his feet.

“Ach, du lieber!” he exclaimed; “it was goot dot you vod dere, uddervise dis foolish Poffer would haf left der key anyvay undt dot British 25 cruiser would have overhauled us. Now I got a proposition to make to you. You are a vireless man. Our second operator is sick undt idt is necessary dot dere is someones at der vireless all of der time. Vill you take der chob?”

Jack hardly knew what to say. The proposal had come so abruptly that he found it hard to make up his mind.

“You would want me to help out all the way to Europe?” he asked.

“We are not going to Europe,” was the reply. “I am going to run back for der American coast undt try to dodge capture. Six million dollars is a big enough prize to make der search for us pretty active. I don’t believe dere would be a chance for us to reach der udder side.”

“Well,” said Jack, after some consideration, “I guess my holiday is off anyhow, and I might as well get down to work now as later on. All right, Captain, you can count on me.”

“Goot for you. I vill see dot you are no loser by idt,” said the big German, and so Jack, by a 26 strange combination of undreamt-of circumstances, became the wireless man of the “gold ship,” whose subsequent adventures were destined to fill the world with wonder.

Poffer’s hours of duty ended at dinner time that evening, and by the time Jack sat down at the key, it was dark. No more word had come from the British cruiser, and so far the Kronprinzessin’s course had not been altered. A hasty message in cipher had been sent to the offices of the line in New York, but so far no orders to turn back had come through the air.

However, Jack had not been on duty an hour before the expected command came. The passengers strolling and sitting about the decks were suddenly aware that the big ship was slowing up and being turned about. The incredulous ones among them were speedily convinced that this was actually the case when it was pointed out that the moon, which had been on the starboard side of the ship in the early evening, was now to be seen off the port quarter.

27 Rumors ran rife throughout the great steel vessel. There had been an accident to the machinery, there were icebergs ahead, some plot against the security of the gold in the specie room had been discovered—these, and even wilder reports, were circulated. The captain and the other officers were besieged for explanations, but none were forthcoming, for the time being.

Shortly before midnight, however, the captain in person entered the smoking room with a telegram in his hand.

“Gentlemen,” he announced to those assembled there, “I am sorry to say that var has been declared bedween England and Germany, Great Britain siding against my Vaterland mit France and Russia.”

He held up his hand to quell the hub-bub that instantly broke loose. When a measure of quiet was restored, he resumed:

“Id is therefore imbossible for the voyage of this ship to continue. As you haf observed, her 28 course has been altered. Ve are on our way back to America.”

“To New York?” demanded a score of voices.

The captain shook his head.

“New York vill be vatched more carefully than any udeer port on der Atlantic coast,” he said. “I haf not yet decided for vere I vill make; but I ask you all to take der situation philisophically and try to quiet any alarm among der lady passengers.”

The turmoil of questions and answers and excited conversation broke out again, and in the midst of it the captain’s broad form disappeared through the doorway. A few moments later, Raynor was in the wireless room after a fruitless search for his chum in other parts of the ship.

“Say, what are you doing sitting at that key?” he demanded. “Have you gone to work for the ship?”

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” smiled Jack.

“Did you know that we are running away 29 from British cruisers?” asked Raynor, breathlessly.

“Knew it before the ship was turned around,” said Jack, calmly. “But I couldn’t have told even you about it at the time. It was confidential. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t hear it all now,” and he launched into a narration of the events just passed which had had such a strange culmination. He was in the midst of it, when one of the junior officers of the ship appeared.

He told the boys they would have to close the door of the wireless room and cover the ports. Not a ray of light must be visible about the ship, he informed them. In the darkness even the glow of a single port-light might give a clue as to the whereabouts of their quarry to the lurking British cruisers. In the passengers’ quarters of the great ship, similar orders were issued. Stewards went about blanketing portholes and turning out all unnecessary lights. By ten o’clock, except in the “working” quarters of 30 the ship,—and there, they were carefully concealed, as in the wireless room,—there was not a light on board.

In order to insure obedience to his orders, the captain had had the cabin lights disconnected from the dynamos at that hour. On the darkened decks, little groups of timid passengers, who refused to go to bed, huddled and talked in low tones, constantly gazing seaward to catch sight of a tell-tale searchlight which would tell of pursuit or interception.

Through the darkness, the great ship was driven at top speed without warning lights of any description. Watches were doubled, and on the bridge, the unsleeping captain kept vigil with his anxious officers.

Through the long hours, Jack sat unwinkingly at his key. But it was not till the sky was graying the next morning that anything disturbed the silence of the air. Then came a break in the monotony. The British cruiser Essex was speaking to the Suffolk. But the messages were 31 in code and told nothing except that Jack caught the name of the liner and knew the radio talk between the warships concerned her.

At breakfast time the passengers assembled in the saloon, for the most part anxious and haggard after sleepless nights. The captain spoke encouragingly, but even his words had little effect. Every one on board felt and showed the strain of this blind racing over the ocean with watchful naval bull-dogs lying in wait ready to pounce on the richest prize afloat on the seven seas.

That night a dense fog fell. But the pace of the fleeing liner was not slackened by a fraction of a knot. Without running lights, and with darkened decks and cabins, she raced blindly onward through the smother, facing disaster if she struck an obstacle. The passengers, already nerve-racked for the most part, almost beyond endurance, named a committee which was sent to the captain to protest against the reckless risk he was taking in ploughing ahead at top speed through the blinding mist.

They returned with a report that the captain had refused to slacken speed. With reckless fatalism, it appeared, he was prepared to lose his ship in a disaster rather than run the chance of its capture by cruisers of the country with 33 which his ruler was at war. A new feeling, one of indignation, began to spread through the big ship. Little knots gathered and angrily censured the captain’s action. Some even visited him in person, but while he was polite to all, he firmly refused to reduce speed or display lights.

This was the condition of affairs when Jack came on duty accompanied by Bill Raynor, who had agreed to share his lonely vigil, for, from being one of the most sought out places on the ship, the wireless room was now deserted by the passengers, for strict orders had been given against the sending or receiving of any wireless messages lest the watching cruisers should get definite information of the liner’s whereabouts and pounce upon her.

There was little for Jack to do under this “ukase” but to lean back restfully in his chair, with the receivers over his ears on the lookout for what might be coming through the air. He and Raynor chatted, discussing the wild flight 34 of the “gold ship,” intermittently, as the hours passed. But suddenly Jack became alert. Out in the dark, fog-ridden night, two ships were talking through the air. They were, as he learned after a moment of listening, the Caledonian of the English Anchor Line and the Mersey, which also flew the British flag.

The young wireless man listened for a time and then “grounded” with a grave face.

“What’s up now?” asked Raynor, noticing this. “If it’s the cruisers, I don’t mind, for only the Germans and Austrians would be held as prisoners. I’d kind of like to be ‘captured,’ as a novelty.”

“This trouble’s worse than cruisers,” rejoined Jack, in sober tones.

“What is it then?”

“Icebergs,” said Jack, sententiously.

“Icebergs at this time of the year?” asked Bill, incredulously, for bergs are rare in August on the usual steamer lanes, though occasionally seen.

35 “That’s what,” rejoined Jack; “the Caledonian was telling the Mersey. She says they are sown thick to the northwest of us. You’ve got to remember that we’re a long way to the north of the usual steamer tracks now, so it’s not surprising that the ‘growlers’ are about.”

“No, but it’s mighty unpleasant,” said Raynor. “What are you going to do?”

“Tell the captain about it at once,” said Jack, decisively, rising and putting on his cap.

“I hope he puts on the brakes when he hears about it,” commented Bill. “I’m not particularly nervous, but going full speed ahead through the fog into a field of bergs doesn’t just exactly feel good.”

“I’m only glad that the passengers don’t know about it,” said Jack. “They’re scary enough now. If they knew about the bergs, I firmly believe some of them would have to be put in strait jackets.”

“Yes, about the only cool ones on board are the Americans and the English,” declared Bill. 36 “I heard to-day that a party of American millionaires got together in the smoking room and laid plans to make an offer to buy the ship and run her across anyhow.”

“That sounds like the American spirit all right,” chuckled Jack. “What became of the idea?”

“The captain told them the ship was not for sale,” said Bill, “even if they offered to throw in the millions in the specie room.”

Jack found Captain Rollok and his officers in anxious consultation in the former’s cabin.

“Ha, so you haf the news, is it?” demanded the captain, as Jack entered.

“Yes, and not very good news, I’m sorry to say,” said Jack. “The Caledonian has just been telling the Mersey that there are icebergs ahead.”

The officers exchanged glances. They all looked at the captain. Evidently some orders were expected, with the greatest peril the sea holds lying ahead of the racing vessel.

37 One of them,—Second Officer Muller, who had the watch,—put his anxiety into words.

“Is it that you will change the course or reduce speed, Captain?” he inquired.

The big, bearded captain turned on him like a flash. He raised his massive fist and brought it down on the table with a crash that bade fair to split the wood.

“We keep on as we are going!” he exclaimed. “Rather than let this ship get into the hands of the English, I’ll send her to the bottom.”

“But the passengers!” exclaimed Jack; “surely——”

“Herr Ready,” said the captain, “I am in command of this ship. The orders are full speed ahead.”

Bill Raynor received Jack’s news with a shrug.

“I’m not surprised, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I’ve met a good many Germans in the course of my sea-going years, and that’s usually their idea,—rather sink the ship than give it up.”

“But the fearful danger, Bill,” protested Jack. “At any moment there may come a crash and——”

“We’ve got iceberg detectors,” said Bill, “and maybe they’ll sound the whistle and locate a big berg by the echo.”

“They won’t sound any whistle to-night,” declared Jack. “That skipper is determined not to give any cruiser the least inkling of his 39 whereabouts. I’m going to take a run on the deck, the wireless bell will call me if something comes. Want to join me?”

“All right. But it’s not much of a night for a stroll outside.”

“Anything’s better than sitting in that cabin waiting for you-don’t-know-what to happen.”

“You’re getting nervous, Jack.”

“Not so much for my own sake as at the thought of all these thousands of tons of steel being raced through this fog at a twenty-four knot clip and icebergs ahead. It’s sheer madness.”

“Well, the captain’s word is law at sea, so it’s no use protesting. We must hope for the best.”

The upper decks were deserted except for the boys. On the lower deck the passengers huddled in the darkness behind canvas screens erected to prevent any chance ray of light from filtering out. It was an uncanny feeling this, of speeding through an impenetrable pall of blackness with the thought of the iceberg warning ever and 40 anon recurring to both lads, though they tried to talk of indifferent subjects.

The hours wore on and the fog did not lighten. Chilled to the bone, although it was August, Jack and Bill had about decided to turn in when there came a sudden sharp cry from the lookout forward. Involuntarily, Bill clutched Jack’s arm. The strain had affected them both more than they cared to admit.

Suddenly, dead ahead of them, as it seemed, there reared, seen white through the mist, a monstrous spectral form. It towered above the steamer’s masts and appeared to their alarmed imaginations to hang like an impending cliff above the ship.

From the bridge came quick shouts. Orders were given and harshly echoed. Somewhere down on the passenger decks, a woman screamed. Then came cries of consternation. The next moment there was a slight shock and a long, shuddering grind passed along the vessel’s side. The mountainous ice mass appeared to sheer off, but 41 in reality the ship was swinging clear of it. By a miracle she had escaped with a mere graze of her side. At diminished speed, she continued on her course.

“Phew, what a narrow escape!” exclaimed Jack, as the fog shut in about the monster berg they had sheered.

“I thought we were goners, sure,” declared Bill, soberly. “A little of that sort of thing goes a long way. I—— Hark!”

From the lower decks there now came the confused noise of a frightened crowd. Now and then, above, could be heard the shrieks of an hysterical woman. Sharp, authoritative voices belonging, as the boys guessed, to the officers, who were trying to quiet the panic-stricken throngs, occasionally sounded above the babel.

“They’re coming this way!” cried Jack suddenly, as a rush of feet could be heard making for the ascents to the boat deck, where the wireless coop was situated. “Bill, we’ll be in the middle of a first-class panic in a minute.”

42 “Yes, if that crowd gets up here among the boats, there’s going to be the dickens popping,” agreed Bill. “What will we do?”

“Run into the wireless room. In the drawer of the desk by the safe there are two revolvers. One’s mine and the other belongs to Poffer. Get them on the jump.”

It did not take Bill long to carry out his errand, but in even the short time that he had been absent, the forefront of the terrified crowd from below was almost at the head of the companionway leading from the promenade to the boat deck. Jack had stationed himself at the head of it.

“Keep cool, everybody,” he was shouting; “there is no danger.”

“The Titanic!” shrieked somebody. “We’ve hit an iceberg. We’ll sink like her.”

“The boats!” shouted a man. “We’ll lower ’em ourselves. We’re sinking!”

In the gloom Jack could see the man’s face, round and white, with a big yellow mustache.

“Keep cool, everybody,” he was shouting; “there is no danger.”—Page 42

43 The fellow shoved two women, wedged in the throng, aside, and addressed himself to Jack, who stood at the head of the companionway.

“Let me pass, you!” he bellowed, seemingly mad with fear. “I want a place in the first boat. I——”

Jack felt Bill slip a revolver into his pocket. But he did not remove the weapon, the time had not yet come for its use.

“Stop that noise,” he told the yellow-mustached man bluntly. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, “there’s no danger. We merely grazed the berg. Thank heaven the ship was swung in time to save her.”

“Don’t believe him,” shrieked the terrified man. “Stand to one side there. The boats!”

He made a rush for Jack and struck heavily at the young wireless operator. But before his blow landed, Jack had crouched and the next instant his fist shot out like a piston rod. The fellow staggered back, but could not fall because of the pressure of humanity behind him.

44 It is difficult to say what might have happened had there not been cooler heads in the crowd. Reassured by Jack’s cool manner, these began quieting the more timid ones. Just then, too, Captain Rollok and some of his officers appeared. All carried drawn revolvers, for a disorganized rush on the boats would have meant that scores of women would have been trampled and many lives lost in the confusion.

The captain’s firm, stern tones completed the work Jack and Bill had begun. He assured the passengers that an examination had been made and that no damage had been done. He also promised thereafter to run at a more moderate speed. Gradually, the excited crowd calmed down, and some sought their cabins. The greater part, however, elected to remain on deck throughout the night.

The next morning the fog had somewhat cleared and the break-neck speed of the ship was resumed. Jack was just resigning the key to young Poffer when the doorway was darkened 45 by a bulky figure. It was that of a big, yellow-mustached man, whom Jack recognized instantly as the man who had led the panic of the night before, and whom he had been forced to deal with summarily.

He furiously glared at Jack, and the boy noticed that under his left eye was a dark bruise, a memento of the previous night.

“What did you mean by striking me last night?” he began angrily. “I demand your name. I will have you discharged.”

“My name is Ready,” answered Jack calmly, “and as far as having me discharged is concerned, I’m afraid that will be impossible. You see I’m here in what you might call an extra-official capacity.”

“Bah! don’t be impudent with me, boy. I am Herr Professor.”

“Oh, a barber,” smiled Jack, amiably.

The yellow-mustached man fairly growled. His light blue eyes snapped viciously.

“I am Herr——”

46 “Oh, yes, I see you’re here,” responded Jack calmly. “You seem to be in rather a bad temper, too.”

“Boy, I will see that you are punished for this. I am a gentleman.”

“Really, it would be as hard to tell it on you this morning as it was last night,” responded Jack, in quite unruffled tones.

“Be very careful, young man. I have already told you I am Herr Professor.”

“Oh, don’t hang out the barber pole again,” begged Jack.

The other shot a glance full of venom at the perfectly cool youth before him. Then, apparently realizing that there was nothing to be gained from indulging in tirades, he turned abruptly on his heel and strode to the door. On the threshold he paused.

“I am going to report your conduct to the captain at once,” he said. “You will find out before long what such gross impertinence to a passenger means.”

47 “I shouldn’t advise you to tell him about your behavior last night, though,” observed Jack.

“Why not?”

“Because from what I’ve observed of him, he is a rather hot-tempered man and he might feel inclined to throw you out of his cabin—and it’s quite a drop from there to the promenade deck.”

“You will hear more of this,” snarled the infuriated man; but at Jack’s parting shot he made off, looking very uncomfortable.

Poffer regarded Jack with a look in which admiration and awe were oddly blended.

“I dink you haf for yourself made idt troubles,” he remarked.

“Trouble! In what way?” demanded Jack. “The fellow is an arrant coward. He——”

“Ah yah, dot is so, but den he is Herr——”

“Gracious, have you got hair on your brain, too?”

“Yah,” was the innocent response. “He is a big Professor at a Cherman War College. He is a 48 great man in Germany, der Herr Professor Radwig.”

“Well, Mr. Earwig, or whatever his name is, may be a great man as you say, Hans, my boy, but he is also a great coward. As for his threat to make trouble with the captain, that does not bother me in the least. To begin with, I’m only a volunteer, as it were, and in the second place, I’ll bet you a cookie or one of those big red apples you’re so fond of, that Mr. Earwig will avoid discussing the events of last night as much as he can. I’ve heard the last of him.”

But in this Jack was wrong. In days that lay ahead of the boys, they were to find that Herr Professor Radwig was ordained to play no unimportant part in their lives.

Late that afternoon Jack, who had just come on deck, was in time to notice an unusual thrill of excitement among the already overwrought passengers. On the northern horizon was a smudge of smoke, and a dark hull bearing down on them. Those who had glasses had already announced the other craft to be a warship, although, of what nation, it was as yet impossible to say.

Jack hurried to the wireless room. Young Poffer declared that he had received no wireless, nor intercepted any message which might have any bearing on the identity of the strange ship. On the bridge, the ship’s officers were in excited consultation. The warship was drawing closer every moment. She was black and squat, 50 with two fat funnels from which volumes of dark smoke rolled. At her bow was a smother of white foam showing the speed at which she was being pushed.

“Ach, now comes it!” exclaimed Poffer the next instant. He wrote rapidly and then handed the message to Jack. The wireless boy read:

“I’ll take it forward right away!” exclaimed Jack. “You listen with all your ears for any more messages, Hans.”

“You bet you my life I will undt den some,” Hans promised. “Vot you dink, dey shood us up, Jack?”

“I don’t know. I suppose if we don’t heave to, they will,” said the wireless boy as he hurried off.

“Chust as I thought,” declared Captain Rollok, after he had read the message.

51 “Shall I tell Hans to send back word we’ll stop?” asked Jack.

“Stop! I vouldn’t stop for der whole British navy,” declared Captain Rollok vehemently.

He stepped to the engine room telegraph and set it violently over to “Full speed ahead.” Then he picked up the engine-room telephone and gave orders to pile on every ounce of steam possible. The great ship quivered and then sprang forward like a grayhound from a leash. Clouds of black smoke rose from her funnels, deluging the decks with ashes as force draught was applied to the furnaces.

Jack hastened back to the wireless room. He found Poffer, pop-eyed and frightened looking.

“There’s another cruiser coming up on the other side!” he exclaimed. “I just heard her talking to the Berwick.”

“That’s nice,” commented Jack, as Bill Raynor and de Garros appeared in the doorway.

“Hullo, Bill,” he continued. “You’ll have a chance to be under fire now.”

52 “What do you mean?” demanded young Raynor.

“Surely it is that the captain will stop?” asked the French aviator.

“Stop nothing,” rejoined Jack. “He doesn’t appear to care what he risks, so long as he saves his ship.”

“I thought I felt her speeding up,” said Bill. “So he’s going to cut and run for it?”

“That’s the size of it,” responded Jack, while the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“They are not understandable, these Germans,” he commented.

“Here comes it anudder message,” struck in Hans, holding up his hand to enjoin silence.

They all looked over his shoulder as he wrote rapidly.

“Your last warning. Heave to or take the consequences.”

It was signed as before by the commander of the Berwick.

53 “My friends, this captain had better heed that warning,” said de Garros. “Englishmen are not in zee habit of what zee call ‘bluffing.’”

But when Jack came back from the bridge, whither he had sped at once with the message, it was to report the captain as obdurate as ever. His only comment had been to call for more speed.

“I guess he thinks we can show that cruiser a clean pair of heels,” said Raynor.

“That looks to be the size of it,” agreed Jack, “but he is taking desperate chances. Let’s go outside and see the fun.”

The cruiser was coming toward them on an oblique line now. From her stern flowed the red cross of St. George on a white field, the naval flag of England. They watched her narrowly for some minutes and then Jack exclaimed:

“Jove! I believe that with luck we can outrun her. The Kronprinzessin is the fastest ship of this line, and if her boilers don’t blow up we may be able to beat that cruiser out.”

54 “I hope so,” declared Raynor, fervently. “I’m not exactly a coward but I must say the idea of being made a target without having the chance to hit back is not exactly pleasant.”

“As I shall be in zee thick fighting not before very long, I might as well receive my baptism of fire now as any other time,” said the Frenchman. “I expect to be placed in charge of zee aviation corps, and I am told zee Germans have some very good aeroplane guns.”

“Look,” cried Bill, suddenly, “they are going to——”

A white mushroom of smoke broke from the forward turret of the cruiser, followed by a screeching above their heads. Then came an ear-splitting report.

“Great guns! Where is this going to end?” gasped Bill, involuntarily crouching.

“Ach Himmel!” groaned Hans Poffer. “Suppose dey hit us vee——”

He got no further. There was another burst of smoke, a quick, lightning-like flash and the same screech of a projectile. But this time, accompanying the sound of the report, was a sound of tearing metal and the ship shook as if she had struck on the rocks.

“The after funnel,” cried Jack, pointing to a jagged hole in the smoke stack.

“The next one may come closer,” choked out Bill rather shakily.

On the lower decks there was the wildest confusion. Women were fainting and the stewards and petty officers had all they could do to handle the frightened throngs. The striking of the 56 funnel was the occasion for an angry and badly scared deputation to wait upon the captain and demand that he stop the ship at once.

But the deputation did not reach the bridge. They were met at the foot of the stairway leading to it by a polite but firm officer who informed them that under no circumstances would the captain tolerate any interference with his method of running the ship.

A third shot, which went wide, closely followed the one that had struck the after funnel. It flew high above them and caused Jack to observe:

“I don’t believe they mean to hit the hull, but only to scare the captain into heaving the boat to.”

“Looks that way,” agreed Bill, “and as for the scare part of it, I guess they’ve succeeded, so far as everybody is concerned but Captain Rollok and his officers.”

“We are gaining on zee cruiser without a doubt,” asserted de Garros, whose eyes had been 57 fixed on the pursuing sea fighter for some minutes.

“Yes, but look, there comes another,” cried Jack, suddenly, pointing astern. “That must be the one Poffer heard signaling to the Berwick.”

“We’re in for it now,” said Bill. “I wish that pig-headed captain would heave to and let them take the gold and the Germans, if that’s all they are after.”

“Hullo!” exclaimed Jack, suddenly, as they all stood waiting nervously to see the next flash and puff from the cruiser’s turret. “I can see a gleam of hope for us. See what’s ahead!”

Ahead of them the sea appeared to be giving off clouds of steam as if it was boiling. As yet this vapor had not risen high, but it was rapidly making a curtain above the sunny waters.

“Fog!” cried Bill, delightedly.

“It cannot be too thick for me,” said de Garros.

“Perhaps Captain Rollok foresaw this and that was why he refused to halt,” said Jack. 58 “Certainly, if we can gain that mist bank before we get badly injured, we’ll be all right.”

It was now a race for the thickening fog curtains. The cruisers appeared to realize that if the Kronprinzessin could gain the shelter of the mist, there would be but small chance of their capturing her. Increased smoke tumbling from their funnels showed that they were under forced draught. But as their speed increased so did that of the “gold ship.”

The gun boomed again on the Berwick, the foremost of the pursuers. The projectile struck the stern of the liner and knocked the elaborate gilt work wreathing, her name and port, into smithereens.

“Aiming at the rudder,” commented Jack. “That’s a good idea from their point of view.”

“But a mighty bad one from ours if they succeed in hitting it,” said Raynor, with a rather sickly laugh.

Two more shots, one of them from the second cruiser, flew above the fugitive liner and then 59 the mist began to settle round her swiftly-driven hull in soft, cottony wreaths. In five minutes more the fog had shut in all about her.

Then ensued a game of marine blind-man’s buff. Captain Rollok, having steamed at full speed some miles through the fog,—and this time there were no protests from passengers,—altered his course and deliberately steamed in circles.

“Hark!” exclaimed Jack, during one of these manœuvers. “What was that?”

Out in the fog somewhere they could hear a sound like the soft beating of a huge heart. It was the throbbing of another vessel’s engines. To the fear of the chase now was added the peril of collision, for in the fog, dense as it was, the captain would not permit the siren to be sounded.

It was almost impossible to tell from which direction the sound was proceeding. It seemed to be everywhere. Was it another peaceful vessel like themselves, or a man-of-war? Much depended on the answer to this question.

60 All at once, with startling distinctness, a huge black bulk loomed up alongside them. Through the fog they caught a sudden glimpse of crowded decks and great guns projecting from grim-looking turrets. It was one of the British cruisers. By grim irony, the fog had delivered them into the hands of their pursuers.

“Great Scott, it’s all off now!” cried Bill, as they simultaneously sensed the identity of the other craft.

But the strange cruise of the Kronprinzessin Emilie was not destined to come to an end then, although, for an instant, it appeared so. Whether the Britisher was mutually astonished, and in the confusion the right orders were not given, or whatever the cause was, before they had more than glimpsed her grim, dogged outlines, she faded away in the fog and was blotted out.

“Phew! A few more close shaves like that and I’d be looking in the mirror to see if my hair hasn’t turned gray,” said Jack.

“I wonder they didn’t take some action,” commented Bill, “although I’m glad they didn’t.”

“Perhaps zey was so astonished zey forgot to fire zee gun,” suggested de Garros.

62 “I guess that was it,” agreed Jack, “but just the same it was a mighty lucky thing for us they didn’t come to their senses sooner.”

“Yes, this thing of playing tag in the fog gets on my nerves,” muttered Bill.

By nightfall, they had steamed through the fog belt, but every eye was anxiously turned astern as if their owners expected at any moment to see the ram-shaped bows of the black British sea bulldogs come poking put of the mist.

But nothing of the sort happened, however, though late that night, far to the eastward of their course, they could see the glowing fingers of the cruisers’ searchlights pointing in every direction across the sea. The next day passed without any untoward happenings, and when, the morning following, Jack gazed from the wireless coop he saw, in the first faint light of dawn, that they were steaming along a strange, unfamiliar, rugged coast.

By the time the passengers were astir, the outlines of the coast had become dotted with 63 cottages and houses, and in the midst of breakfast they steamed into a harbor, and the anchor was dropped with a roar and a rumble. Like a flash, the tables in the saloon were deserted. There was a general rush for the deck.

“Why, that house over there looks just like my home at Bar Harbor,” cried one woman.

Ten minutes later her words were confirmed. It was Bar Harbor, Maine, into which the sorely-harried liner had taken refuge under the neutral protection of the Stars and Stripes. Not daring to run into New York or Boston, the captain had selected the world-famous summer resort as a harbor that the English cruisers would be the least likely to watch, and his judgment proved sound. And so ended the cruise of the “gold ship,” in whose strange adventures the boys were ever proud of having participated. An hour after the great liner’s arrival, she was almost deserted by her passengers who were choking the telegraph wires with messages.

The wireless disseminated far and wide the 64 news of her safe arrival, and they learned, ashore, that for days the fate of the “gold ship” had been the puzzle of the country. All sorts of wild guesses had been printed as to her whereabouts. She had been reported off the coast of Scotland and again in the English Channel. One rumor had it that she had been captured, another that she had been sunk and most of those on board lost.

Not one of these guesses, however wild or probable, came within striking distance of the extraordinary truth of the “gold ship’s” flight across the war-swept seas. The day after their arrival, and while the town was still seething with excitement over the great liner’s presence in the harbor, Jack received a telegram at the hotel where he, Raynor and de Garros had taken up temporary quarters. The message was from Mr. Jukes and read as follows:

“Learned by the papers of your safe return. Kindly call at my office as soon as possible after your arrival in New York. Important.”

65 “What’s in the wind now?” exclaimed Jack to Bill Raynor, who was with him when he got the message.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Raynor; “but I have a sort of notion in the back of my head that your vacation is over.”

“If you can call it a vacation,” laughed Jack.

“Well then, perhaps experience would be a better word,” substituted Bill, also laughing.

That evening, arrangements having been made about the shipment of their baggage to New York, the boys and the young French aviator obtained their tickets from an agent of the steamship company, for the line was bearing all expenses, and took a night train for home.

Almost as soon as they reached the city, Jack visited Mr. Jukes’ office.

“Thank goodness you’ve come, Ready!” he exclaimed as soon as he had shaken hands with the lad, upon whom, since their adventures in the South Seas, he strangely came to rely; “the St. Mark sails to-morrow for Europe. I don’t 66 know yet, in the middle of this European muddle, just what ports she will touch at. That must be settled by her captain later on.”

“But Mullen is on the St. Mark,” began Jack. “I wouldn’t wish to usurp his job and——”

“And anyhow, it’s your vacation,” interpolated the magnate. “I know all that, Ready, and depend upon it, you won’t suffer by it if you agree to my wishes. It isn’t exactly as wireless operator I want you to sail on the St. Mark, it’s on a personal mission in part. My son, Tom, is among the refugees somewhere in France. I don’t know where. I haven’t heard a word since this war started, but the last I know he was auto touring north of Paris. He may even have gone into Belgium, for that was a part of his plan.”

“And you want me to try to find him?” demanded Jack slowly.

“Yes, I know it’s a big job, but I know that if anyone can carry it through, you can. Expense is no object, spend all you like but find the 67 boy. This suspense is simply killing his mother and worrying me sick.”

“I’m willing and glad to take the job, Mr. Jukes,” said the young wireless man, “but, as you say, it’s a big undertaking and has about one chance in a hundred of being successful. Besides, you may have heard of him and his whereabouts even before the St. Mark reaches Europe.”

“I’ll take my chances of that,” declared the millionaire. “It’s action that I want. The feeling that something has actually been done to find him.”

“On these conditions, I’ll go and do my best,” said Jack.

“Thank you, Ready, thank you. I knew you wouldn’t fail me. Now about funds. They tell me finances are all topsy-turvy over there now. Nobody can get any American paper money or travelers’ checks cashed. That may be Tom’s fix. You’d better take gold. Here.”

He drew a check book out of a drawer and 68 wrote out a check of a size that made Jack gasp.

“Get gold for that,” he said, as he handed it over, “and when that’s gone, Linwood and Harding, of London, are my agents. Draw on them for what you need. And, by the way, is there anybody you want to take with you?”

“I was going to say, sir,” said Jack, “that for a task like this, Bill Raynor——”

“The very fellow. I’ll never forget him in New Guinea. A splendid lad. But will he go with you?”

“I rather think he will,” rejoined Jack with a twinkle in his eye.

Readers of earlier volumes of this series will recall Tom Jukes, who, after being cast away when his father’s yacht burned at sea, was found by Jack’s clever wireless work. This was the youth,—he was about Jack’s own age,—whom the wireless boy had been commissioned to find. Although the task appeared, as Jack had said, one almost impossible of accomplishment, still Jack was boy enough to be delighted at the prospect of traversing war-ridden Europe and possibly playing a part in the mightiest struggle of all time. As for Bill Raynor, he was wild with excitement at the idea. Uncle Toby Ready, when he was told of the intended trip, shook his head and muttered something about “playing with fire,” but he was eventually won over and 70 presented Jack with a dozen bottles of the Golden Embrocation and Universal Remedy for Man and Beast.

“If so be as you meet up with the Kaiser, or the King of England, or the Czar, just give ’em a bottle with my compliments,” he said in bestowing the gift. “By the flying jib, it might be the means of building me up a big European trade. Think of it, Cap’n Toby Ready, P. O. H. R. H.—Physician in Ordinary to His Royal Highness. If you don’t run acrost any of them skippers of state you can just distribute it around careless like, and draw special attention to the directions and to my address in case the prescription should require to be refilled.”

Jack promised, but it is to be feared that the Golden Embrocation never got nearer Europe than the cabin of the square rigger Jane Harding, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, which happened to be in the Erie Basin unloading lumber. Captain Podsnap, of the Jane Harding, was an ardent admirer of, and believer in, Captain Toby’s 71 concoctions which, as the compounder boasted, never were known to do harm even where they didn’t do good. To Captain Podsnap, therefore, Jack hied himself perfidiously and made over to him the gifts intended for ailing royalty.

The St. Mark was what is known as a “popular” ship. That is, she usually crossed with full cabins. But on the present trip there were a bare score of passengers in the first cabin, not many more in the second, while in the steerage were a couple of hundred travelers, mostly reservists of the various countries at war, returning to Europe to take up arms.

As they steamed down the harbor, the docks on each side of the river could be observed to be crowded with idle steamers of all sizes, from small freighters to huge four-funnelled liners. With smokeless stacks and empty decks, they lay moored to their piers, offering an eloquent testimonial to the almost complete paralysis of ocean traffic that marked the earlier days of the war. Off Tompkinsville, Staten Island, the 72 dreadnought, Florida, swung at anchor, grim in her gray war paint,—Uncle Sam’s guardian of neutrality. It was her duty to keep watch and ward over the port to see that no contraband went out of the harbor on the ships flying the flags of combatting nations and in other ways to enforce President Wilson’s policy of “hands off.”

With dipping ensign, the St. Mark slipped by, after a brief scrutiny by a brisk young officer. Then, down the bay she steamed, which the boys had traversed only a few days before on the hunted Kronprinzessin.

“Well, Jack, old fellow,” observed Raynor, as Jack leaned back after sending a few routine messages of farewell and business of the ship, “off again on our travels.”

“Yes, and this time, thank goodness, we’re under Uncle Sam’s flag, and that means a whole lot in these days.”

“It does, indeed,” agreed the other fervently, “but have you any idea what port we are bound for?”

73 “Not as yet. We are to get instructions by wireless, either from the New York or London offices.”

“This a queer job we’ve embarked on, Jack,” resumed Raynor, after a pause in which Jack had “picked up” Nantucket and exchanged greetings.

“It is indeed. I only hope we can carry it through successfully. At any rate, it will give us an opportunity to see something of the war for ourselves.”

“It’s a great chance, but as to finding Tom Jukes, I must say I agree with you that a needle in a hay stack isn’t one, two, three with it.”

A heavily built man, dark bearded and mustached, entered the wireless cabin. He had a despatch ready written in his hand.

“Send this as soon as possible, please,” he said, handing it to Jack.

As his eyes met those of the young wireless man he gave a perceptible start which, however, was unnoticed by either of the boys. Raynor 74 was paying no particular attention to the matter in hand and Jack was knitting his brows over the despatch. It was in code, to an address in New York and was signed Martin Johnson.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson,” said Jack, “but we can’t handle this message.”

“Can’t? Why not?” demanded the passenger indignantly.

“Because it is in code.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“While the war lasts we have instructions not to handle code messages or any despatches that are not expressed in English that is perfectly plain.”

“That’s preposterous,” sputtered the passenger angrily. “This is a message on a business matter I tell you.”

“If you’ll write it out in English, I’ll transmit it,” said Jack; “that’s what I’m here for.”

The man suddenly leaped forward. He thrust a hand in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills.

75 “Can I speak to you confidentially?” he asked, turning his eyes on Raynor.

“Anything you’ve got to say you can say before my friend,” said Jack.

“Then, see here—there’s a hundred dollars in that roll,” as he threw it on the desk, “forget that code rule a while and it’s yours.”

“Look here, Mr. Johnson,” said Jack coldly, “I’ve already told you what my orders are. As for your money, if it was a million it would be just the same to me.”

“Bah! You are a fool,” snapped the other, angrily snatching up the money and flinging out of the cabin, crumpling the code message in his hand.

“That infernal boy again,” he muttered, as he gained the deck outside. “This only makes another score I have to settle with him. These Americans, they are all fools. Well, Von Gottberg in New York will have to go without information, that’s all, if I can’t find some way of getting at the wireless.”

76 “Say, Jack,” asked Raynor, as the bearded man left the cabin, “did that fellow remind you of anybody?”

“Who, Johnson?” asked Jack idly. “Why yes, now that you come to mention it, there was something familiar about his voice and his eyes, but for the life of me I couldn’t place him.”

“Nor I, and yet I’ve a strong feeling that we’ve met him somewhere before.”

“Johnsons are as thick as blackberries,” commented Jack.

“Yes, but I don’t connect that name with this man. It was some other name altogether. Oh, well, what’s the use of trying to recall it—anyhow, Mr. Johnson, whoever he is, hasn’t got a very amiable temper. I thought he was going to swell up and bust when you refused that message.”

But further comment on the irate passenger was cut short at that moment by a beating of dots and dashes against Jack’s ears, to which one of the “receivers” was adjusted. He hastily 77 slipped the other into place and then turned to Raynor with a grin.

“It’s our old friend, the Berwick,” he said. “She’s outside waiting for us, but this time, glory be, we’re flying Old Glory.”

Sandy Hook lay behind a dim blue line on the horizon, and the long Atlantic heave was beginning to swing the St. Mark in a manner disconcerting to some of the passengers, before they came in sight of the cruiser that had led the Kronprinzessin such a harried chase.

“Looks familiar, doesn’t she?” commented Jack, as they slowed down and the Berwick steamed up alongside, about five hundred yards off.

“If it hadn’t been for that lucky fog, she’d have looked more familiar yet,” declared Bill. “Look, they’re lowering a boat.”

From the cruiser’s side a small boat, crowded with uniformed sailors, and in the stern sheets of which sat a smart junior officer, dropped and, 79 propelled by long, even strokes of the oars which rose and fell in perfect unison, was presently coming toward the liner. The St. Mark’s accommodation ladder was lowered, and in a few minutes the young British officer was aboard.

Every passenger was lined up in the saloon and compelled to answer questions as to their nationality, etc. All passed satisfactorily. Then came the turn of the second cabin and the steerage. From the second cabin, two admitted German reservists were taken as prisoners of war and in the steerage six more were found. They took their apprehensions stoically, although they knew that they would probably be confined at Halifax or Bermuda till the close of hostilities.

Jack and Bill Raynor watched these scenes with interest.

“I suppose it will be months, maybe years, before some of those poor fellows see their homes again,” said Bill.

“Yes, but it’s what you might call the fortune of war,” responded Jack briefly.

80 So expeditiously was the work of culling out the reservists done that an hour after the Berwick’s officers had boarded the liner, the last of the prisoners was off and the ship’s papers had been inspected and O.K.’d. With mutual salutes, the two craft parted, the Berwick to lie “off and on,” looking for commerce carriers of a hostile nation, the St. Mark to resume her voyage to a Europe which was even then crowded with desperate, stranded American tourists unable to obtain money or passage home.

At dinner time Muller, the St. Mark’s regular operator, relieved Jack, and he was free for the evening. He elected to spend his leisure time reading up in a text-book, lately issued, an account of the workings of a new coherer that had recently been brought out.

But the fatigues of the day had made him drowsy and he soon dropped off to sleep in the chair he had placed on the upper deck in the shelter of a big ventilator. Despite the time of year there was a cool, almost a chilly breeze 81 stirring, and most of the small number of first-class passengers were either in the smoking room or the saloon.

How long he slept Jack did not know, but he was awakened by the sound of voices proceeding from the other side of the ventilator, which masked him from the speakers’ view. One of the voices, which Jack recognized as belonging to Martin Johnson, grated harshly on his ears.

“If it hadn’t been for that cub of a wireless boy,” Johnson was saying, “that message would have been in the hands of Von Gottberg by this time.”

“And so you haven’t been able to send word about the British cruiser?” inquired the other speaker.

“No, and from the same cause. I shall have to see what I can do with the night operator. He may not be so absurdly scrupulous, unless that young whelp who was on day duty has been talking to him.”

“Did you say, Herr Professor, that you had 82 met him before?” asked the last speaker’s companion.

“Yes, confound him, on the Kronprinzessin Emilie. I was—er—I was trying to organize an orderly retreat to the boats after the alarm had been spread that British cruisers were after us, when this young scoundrel attacked me brutally.”

“Didn’t you report him to the captain?”

“Well, you see there were—er—reasons which made it unwise to do so.”

“You bet there were, Herr Professor Radwig,—for I know who you are now, Mr. Johnson,” muttered Jack to himself. “No wonder I thought I knew you in spite of your disguise.”

“What are your present plans?” asked Mr. Johnson’s, or rather, Herr Professor Radwig’s companion.

“I shall have to see. You understand wireless, Schultz?”

“Intimately. Why, you have some idea—?”

“Never mind now. It is getting chilly. Let 83 us go to our cabins. I will talk to you more about this to-morrow.”

The voices died away as the two left the upper deck. Jack, wide awake now, sprang to his feet. Clearly there was some mischief concerning the wireless in the air. But of the nature of the impending scheme he could not hazard a guess.

“Anyhow, I’ll just put Muller wise to what’s going on,” thought Jack. “He’s a decent, square fellow, who wouldn’t stand for any monkey business. How to deal with Herr Radwig is another matter. I guess I’ll sleep on it. If only those chaps on the Berwick knew who they had overlooked on their hunt for Germans, wouldn’t they be mad as hornets!”

It was not part of Jack’s plan to apprise Muller of the identity of Mr. Johnson. He did not wish to act prematurely in any way till he had consulted Raynor and a plan of campaign had been worked out.

“That guy certainly won’t try any monkey-shines with me,” Muller assured Jack slangily, but with a sincere ring in his voice, and Jack knew he could trust him.

Then he sought out Bill, whom he found in the latter’s cabin writing letters.

“Well, Bill,” he began. “I’ve solved the mystery of Mr. Johnson.”

Bill’s writing was instantly forgotten.

“You mean that peppery chap?”

“The same person. He’s an old friend of 85 yours. You were not mistaken when you said that you thought you recognized his voice.”

“The dickens you say?” Bill was all attention now. “And who is he?”

“Why,—as the nickel novels say,—none other than our old college chum, Herr Professor Radwig.”

“For gracious’ sake!” Bill’s expression left no doubt as to the genuineness of his astonishment. “Old Earwig turned up again, eh?”

“Yes, and from some not very complimentary remarks he made about me, Bill,” continued Jack, “I don’t think he’d be averse to doing me some mischief, if he could.”

“He’d better not try.” Bill doubled his fists pugnaciously.

“The trouble is, I didn’t overhear enough to find out just what his little game is.”

“That’s too bad. It’s a shame we didn’t know his identity earlier. We would have earned the thanks of that English cruiser.”

“We certainly would. De Garros told me 86 that Radwig is accounted a very clever and dangerous man. He has invented explosives and is active in the entire German military movement.”

“By the way, where is de Garros?” asked Bill.

“I don’t know any more than you do. After we left him at the depot in New York on our return from Bar Harbor, I lost sight of him. In fact, things have gone on with such a rush since then, that I haven’t had time to think of him till now. He told me, though, that he would take the first ship possible to France.”

“Well, to get back to old Earwig.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to expose him?”

“Expose him to whom?”

“The captain, for instance.”

“What would be the good? He has committed no crime. If he wants to travel under a false name that is not our business so long as he does not interfere with us.”

“That’s true, but just the same, if we are 87 boarded by another British cruiser, I’ll have something to whisper in the boarding officer’s ear,” said Bill, truculently.

“I wish we knew who this Schultz was,” confessed Jack.

“Does that name appear on the passenger lists?”

“On none of them. Besides, if it had, the man would have been questioned by that officer from the Berwick. He quizzed everybody with a name that even sounded German.”

“That’s so,” admitted Bill; “he certainly went through the ship with a rake. I guess old Earwig’s friend has some American sounding name that will carry him safe across the ocean no matter what happens.”

Soon after, Jack sought his berth in the wireless room. As he approached the opened door of the radio station, from which a flood of yellow light issued, he saw, or thought he saw, two lurking figures in the shadow of one of the boats. But even as he sighted them, they vanished.

88 For an instant, Jack assumed that they were two of the boat crew but, as they scurried past an open port, he saw they wore ordinary clothes and not the sailor uniforms of the crew.

“Odd,” he mused. “Those fellows were certainly hanging around the wireless room for no good purpose. If they had been, they wouldn’t have sneaked the instant they saw me coming. I’m willing to bet a cookie one of them was Earwig and the other his precious pal who understands wireless. Jack, old boy, it’s up to you to keep your eyes open.”

“Anything doing?” he asked Muller, as he entered the wireless room.

“Not a thing. Deader than a baseball park on Christmas Day,” rejoined Muller.

“You didn’t see anything of our friend, for instance?”

“Who, Johnson? No, he hasn’t been near here.”

Jack nodded good-night and then turned in. But as the ship bored on through the darkness 89 his eyes refused, as they customarily did, to close in his usual sound sleep.

His mind was busy with many things. It was clear that Radwig was contemplating some use of the wireless which did not yet seem quite clear. That it was his duty to checkmate him Jack was convinced, but as yet he had little to go upon except the conversation overheard behind the ventilator.

“I guess watchful waiting will have to be the policy,” he murmured to himself as he fell asleep.

The next morning, when Jack and Bill turned out, there was quite a flutter among the passengers. A large ship had been sighted in the distance, coming rapidly westward. As she drew nearer it could be seen that she was a monster craft of four immense funnels painted a sombre black without colored bands to relieve the effect. Her upper works were a dull brown and her hull, black.

Speculation was rife concerning her identity, but it soon became noised about that the craft was the Ruritania of the Anglican Line, which had, apparently, been converted into an auxiliary cruiser by the English Government on the outbreak of the war. The sight of guns mounted on her fore and aft decks confirmed this.

91 On she came, a fine, grim spectacle in her dull paint. An absorbed shipload watched her, leaning over the rails as she drew abreast.

“Lie to!”

The signals fluttered from her halliards and the same order was flashed by wireless.

For the second time the St. Mark’s engines revolved more and more slowly. The two big vessels lay opposite each other on the swells, nodding solemnly. Before long a boat came bobbing over the seas from the Ruritania.

“Now’s your chance to give that fellow Earwig up,” declared Raynor to Jack, as, leaning in the door of the wireless room, they watched the scene.

“Somehow it seems to me that would be a shabby trick,” said Jack, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll confess, though, that when the Ruritania hove in sight such a thought came into my mind. But—oh, well, I guess we’ll let him get by this time.”

“Maybe you’ll be sorry for it later on,” said 92 Raynor, little guessing that those words were prophetic. There was to come a time when Jack was to bitterly regret having let Radwig escape capture by the British.

The inspection by the naval reserve officer of the Ruritania did not vary from that which the St. Mark had already undergone at the hands of the Berwick. Naturally, the German reservists having been already given up, there was little to do but to overhaul the ship’s papers. This did not take long, and before half an hour had passed, the two steamships saluted each other and parted company.

That afternoon Jack had a visitor in the wireless room. It was Mr. Johnson. He opened the conversation ingratiatingly.

“I’m afraid I rather lost my temper the other afternoon,” he said. “I want to apologize.”

“That’s all right,” said Jack briefly, choking back a longing to tell Mr. Johnson that he was perfectly aware of his identity.

“I—er—perhaps what I offered was not 93 enough,” he continued. “I may tell you now that I will double or triple the amount if you will send a message for me,—using a code, of course.”

Jack jumped to his feet, his eyes ablaze.

“See here, sir,” he shot out, “you might offer me all the money there is in Germany but it would not be of the slightest interest to me. Now if you have nothing more to say, I’ll ask you to leave this cabin before I——”

The angry boy checked himself with his hands clenched and his eyes flashing. A murderous look came into Mr. Johnson’s bearded face, but he appeared to be determined to keep himself in check.

“Do not be foolish,” he urged; “have an eye to your own interests. As for your reference to Germany——”

“You are going to say that you don’t understand it,” cut in Jack.

“Well, I must say I——”

“Don’t go any further,” interrupted the angry 94 young wireless boy, “and now ‘Mr. Johnson,’ or Herr Radwig, I’ll ask you to leave.”

Radwig looked for a moment as if he was about to choke. His face turned purple and his hands clenched and unclenched nervously. The sweat stood out in tiny beads on his forehead.

“What do you mean——?” he began.

Jack leaned forward and looked at him significantly.

“Just this, Herr Professor, that in spite of that fake beard and your dyed mustache, I know you. Your reason for being disguised and going under a false name is no business of mine now. See that you don’t make it so.”

“You—you——” sputtered the man who was startled in the extreme.

“And furthermore,” continued Jack, “we are likely to run across some more British ships. If you annoy me any more, I shall point you out for what you are. That will be all. Now go.”

Utterly bereft of words, Radwig turned 95 heavily and half fell out of the cabin. He collided with Bill Raynor, who was just coming in. He fairly snarled at Jack’s chum, who airily remarked:

“Don’t slam the door when you’re going out!”

“You young whipper snapper, I—I——” choked out Radwig, and being too discomfited to find words, ended the sentence by shaking his fist at the two boys.

“Well,” said Raynor, as Radwig vanished, muttering angrily to himself, “it would appear as if you’d spilled the beans, Jack.”

“It does look that way, doesn’t it?” said Jack with a smile. “I rather fancy our Teutonic friend will be good for a while now.”

“What happened?” was Raynor’s next question.

“Oh, he came in here and offered me untold gold to send a code message for him. I fancy that it was about the Ruritania, telling her whereabouts and so on.”

“So that was his game, eh?”

“Well, he didn’t work it. I got mad and told him that he needn’t bother to conceal his identity from me, and that if he bothered me any more I’d show him up to the first British officer that again boarded us.”

“Phew! Going some. How did he take it?”

“I thought he was going up like a balloon for a minute,” laughed Jack. “Now, if we only could identify Schultz, we’d have both of them where we want them.”

97 “That’s going to be a hard job,” declared Bill. “They don’t go about together. At least, I’ve watched closely, but never saw Radwig talking with anyone on board.”

“No, I guess they keep pretty well under cover for fear of accident. I wish I could have gotten a look at them that night I overheard them talking.”

“Yes, it would have simplified matters a good deal,” Bill admitted, “but, as you say, I don’t think either of them will try to bother us again.”

The day passed uneventfully. In the afternoon they sighted a small British freighter making her way west, and later on overtook a French oil ship bound for Holland. Jack flashed them the latest war news, for they had a small wireless outfit, and in return received the information that two German cruisers were somewhere in the vicinity and that the French ship was in fear of capture at any time.

That evening the wind blew rather hard. A high sea was whipped up by the gale and the St. 98 Mark, big as she was, rolled and pitched violently. It was what sea-faring men would have called “a fresh breeze,” but to the passengers, that is, such of them as were unseasoned travelers, it was a veritable storm.

Jack and Bill rather enjoyed the rough weather, coming as it did after a monotonous calm. After dinner they ascended to the boat deck and paced up and down, chatting for some time. Inside the wireless room Muller was at the key. Now and then, as they passed and repassed, they would exchange a word with him. It was on one of these occasions that Muller hailed them excitedly.

“There’s a ship just wirelessed the S. O. S.!” he exclaimed.

“Great Scott,” cried Jack, “and on a night like this. What’s the trouble?”’

“Don’t know yet. I’m trying to get them again. Notify the captain, will you?”

“On the jump,” cried Jack.

He despatched his errand in a few minutes, 99 and was back in the wireless room with instructions to “stand by” and get further information as soon as possible.

“Anything new?” he asked Muller.

The wireless man shook his head.

“Nothing but that first S. O. S.,” he said.

Suddenly there came a shout from Bill, who was standing in the door.

“Look, Jack, what’s that off there?” he exclaimed, pointing to the horizon.

A dull glow was reflected against the night sky in the direction he indicated. Now it flashed bright as a blown furnace, and again it sank to a faint glare. Jack was not long in deciding what it was.

“It’s a ship on fire,” he declared.

At almost the same moment a hoarse shout from the forward lookout and a shouted reply from the bridge told that the glare had been observed from there, too.

Possibly there is nothing at sea that thrills like the sight of a vessel on fire. Jack, it will be 100 recalled, had witnessed such a spectacle before, but yet his heart bounded as he watched the distant glare now bright and glowing, now dull and flickering.

“Hullo, the old man has rung for full speed ahead!” exclaimed Bill, as the next moment the St. Mark’s speed was perceptibly quickened and her course changed.

Several seamen in charge of the third officer, a Mr. Smallwood, came trampling aft. They busied themselves loosening the fastenings of one of the boats and getting it ready for launching. Presently they were joined, and three additional craft were made ready for the work of life saving.

All this time the glow had been getting brighter as the St. Mark approached the burning ship. But the distance was as yet too great to make out what manner of vessel she was.

“I’d give anything to get in one of those boats,” observed Jack to Bill, as the two lads watched the preparations for lowering away.

101 “So would I,” agreed Bill. “Do you think there’s a chance?”

“I don’t know. I ‘deadheaded’ a radio for Mr. Smallwood to his sick mother the day we sailed. That might have some influence with him. I’ll ask him anyhow.”

Jack vainly pleaded with the at first obdurate officer, but after a long interval, he returned to Bill with a smile on his face.

“It’s all right,” he announced. “It was a hard job to get him to consent. I won him over at last. We go.”

“Hurray!” cried Bill. “Now for some oilskins! It’s not the sort of night to be without them.”

“I’ve got mine in the cabin,” said Jack. “I’ll borrow Muller’s for you.”

“Good for you. Gosh! Look at those flames. Seems to be a big steamer.”

Both boys paused a moment to look at the awe-inspiring spectacle of the blazing ship.

As they did so, something occurred which 102 chilled the hot blood in their veins and caused them to exchange startled, bewildered looks.

Over the dark, heaving waters that divided them from the blazing vessel there was borne to their ears what sounded like an awful concerted groan of agony. Again and again it came, rising and falling in a terrible rhythm. It was not human. It sounded like the sufferings of demons.

“Wow! But that’s fearful!” exclaimed Bill, paling. “What under the sun can it be?”

The awesome sound continued while the boats were being lowered. The weird nature of the uproar and its mystery made even the rough seamen apprehensive. The more religious among them crossed themselves fervently.

“Bad cess to it, if it don’t sound like the howling of poor sowls in purgathory,” muttered one of them.

As the boat in which he and Bill were sitting beside Mr. Smallwood was lowered, Jack glanced upward and had a view of the lighted decks, the rails being lined with the heads of curious and excited passengers. Then came a sickening swing outward as the ship rolled.

“Let go all or we’ll be smashed!” shouted Mr. Smallwood.

104 For a moment, as the ship heaved back, it seemed indeed, as if the boat was doomed to be dashed against her steel sides and smashed into splinters. But in the nick of time the “falls” were let go “all standing.” The boat rushed downward and struck the top of a great wave with a force that shook her. The next instant, the patent blocks opened and on the crest of the great comber Mr. Smallwood’s boat, and the others, were swept off into the darkness.

Behind them arose a mighty cheer, but they hardly noticed it in the excitement and danger of the launching.

“A bad night for this work,” muttered Mr. Smallwood as the boat was lifted heavenward and then rushed down into a dark profundity from which it seemed impossible she could emerge. A blood red glow from the leaping flames enveloping the stern of the doomed craft, which was a large, single funneled steamer, lay on the roughened sea.

“Are there passengers on board, do you 105 think?” asked Jack, rather tremulously, as the blood-chilling uproar from the burning vessel continued.

“Looks to me more like a freighter—hard there on the bow-oars,—meet that sea,—she has no upper decks,” replied the third officer.

“I don’t see anybody on board her, either,” said Bill, after an interval, during which the boat escaped swamping, as it seemed to the boys, by a miracle only.

“Let’s hope they got away,” said the third officer, “but that devil’s concert on board beats me. It’s not human, that’s one sure thing. What in blazes is it?”

“It gives me the shivers,” confessed Bill.

The noise grew positively deafening as they got closer. The intense heat of the blaze and the shower of falling embers that enveloped them added to their discomfort.

“Row toward the bow,” roared Mr. Smallwood, cupping his hands, “or we’ll have the boats afire next.”

106 Already several of the seamen had hastily extinguished portions of their clothing that had caught, and burns on hands and faces were plentiful. But as they pulled toward the blazing craft’s bow, this annoyance was avoided, the wind blowing the heat and embers from them.

All at once, as they swung upward on the crest of an immense comber, Jack uttered a shout:

“The mystery’s solved.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Smallwood.

“The mystery of that horrible noise. That’s a cattle ship yonder, and the poor beasts are mad with fear.”

The next wave gave them a clear view of tossing horns and heads as the unfortunate cattle, penned on the burning craft, rushed madly about the decks, in vain seeking some means of relief. It was a piteous sight, for there was no way of saving them from being burned alive unless the ship sank first.

107 “Oh, but that’s awful!” gasped Jack, with a shudder.

“Look, look up on the bow!” cried Bill suddenly. “There’s a man. He’s seen us.”

“He’s waving,” cried Mr. Smallwood. “Hurrah! Give way, men! There’s a poor beggar roasting on that ship.”

But the boat’s crew needed no urging. In the lee of the burning cattle ship the water was smoother and they could make better time. Silhouetted against the glare, too, every man of them could see, by a twist of his head, that solitary marooned figure on the bow of the fire ship.

As the first boat,—Mr. Smallwood’s,—ranged in alongside the high steel prow, Jack’s quick eye caught sight of a rope dangling from the great steel anchor chains. By what impulse he did it he could not have explained, but as the boat ranged close alongside he poised for an instant on the heaving gunwale and then launched his body forward into space.

108 “Come back, boy!” shouted Mr. Smallwood. But by the time the words had left his mouth, Jack was scrambling up the rope amidst the cheers of the men in the tossing boats now far below him. It was the work of a few moments only to gain the anchor chain, and to climb up them was, for a lad of Jack’s brawn and activity, an easy task.

“Thank heaven you came before it was too late,” cried the solitary man on the fore deck, staggering toward the boy with outstretched arms.

“Are you the only man on board?” demanded the boy, deciding to leave explanations till later.

“No, Dick Sanders is sick in his bunk below.”

“Where, down this hatchway? In the forecastle?” asked Jack quickly.

“Yes, I was too weak to carry him up, heaven help me,” muttered the other reeling weakly.

Jack did not stop to listen. He knew that within a few minutes his shipmates would be on board and would rescue the half-crazed man on 109 the bow. It was his duty to go after the sick man below. Into the ill-smelling darkness of the forecastle of the cattle ship he plunged, clawing his way down an iron ladder. At the bottom he struck a match. As its light flared up he heard a groan, and looking in the direction from which it came he espied the emaciated form of a boy lying in a bunk.

“Have you come to save me?” gasped out the sick lad, who was almost a skeleton and whose eyes glowed with unnatural brightness in his parchment-like face.

“Yes, but you must do exactly what I tell you,” instructed Jack.

“I will, oh, I will,” choked out the other. “Only save me. I was afraid I was going to be left here to die alone.”

“Don’t talk about dying now,” ordered Jack. “Now clasp your arms round my neck and hold on tight. Do you think you can keep your grip till we get to the top of that ladder?”

“Yes—that is, I think so,” returned the sick 110 lad, who had been cabin boy on the doomed ship.

“Then, hold on,” ordered Jack as, having carried his pitifully light burden across the forecastle to the foot of the ladder, he prepared to ascend the rounds. Once or twice he had to stop on the way up, and holding on with one hand, grasp Dick Sanders with his other arm to allow the lad to recruit his strength. At last they reached the deck and Jack, who was almost exhausted, laid his frail burden down with a sigh of relief.

He looked about for his companions, who he fully expected to see on the forecastle. There was no sign of them.

The lone man who had waved to them from the bow had also vanished. A rope ladder, one end of which was secured inboard, showed the way they had gone.

“Queer that they didn’t wait for me,” muttered Jack. “They must have known I was below. I wonder——”

111 There was a sudden warning shout from somewhere.

“Look out for your life!” came in Mr. Smallwood’s voice.

Jack looked up, startled. The burning ship was a flush-decked craft. That is, her forecastle was not raised, but was on a level with the main deck where the cattle pens were. The terrified creatures, in their frenzy of fear, had broken loose from the flimsy timber structure, and now, urged on by the flames behind them, were charging down in a wild stampede upon Jack and the half-conscious form of the sick boy at his feet.

It was not possible to effect a retreat down the forecastle hatch, for his efforts to support himself on the journey up had been too much for Dick Sanders’ strength.

Jack looked about him. It was imperative to act with desperate swiftness.

Now, not fifty feet from him was the advance guard of the maddened, fear-crazed steers. In 112 a few seconds, if he did not act swiftly, both he and the lad he had rescued would be pounded by their sharp hoofs into an unrecognizable mass.

Suddenly he formed a resolution. With desperate eagerness he stripped off his oilskins and kicked off the light deck shoes he had not thought to change in the hurry of embarkment. Then, picking up the fragile form of Dick in his arms, he sped for the side of the forecastle.

As the long-horned steers swept down so close to him that he could feel their breaths and see the whites of their frenzied eyes, the boy leaped up and outward into the night.

What happened after the leap, Jack never knew clearly. He felt a wild, half-suffocating rush through the air and then a sensation of choking and strangling as a cold, stifling weight of water pressed in on him. Down, down, down he plunged. It seemed as if he would never rise. In his ears was an intolerable drumming. Everything was blood-red before his eyes.

Then came a sudden blast of blessed air, following a swift upward rush, and he found himself struggling in the wild sea with Dick Sanders clinging desperately to him and almost making him go under again.

Luckily Jack, without conscious thought, had chosen the lee side of the burning ship, where the boats hovered, for his leap for two lives. 114 As his head appeared above the surface, the bright glare of the flames showed his form clearly to the anxious watchers who had witnessed his daring dive.

“There he is! Hurrah!” shouted Bill Raynor, who was the first to see him. “Hold on, Jack, old boy, we’ll be with you in just a second.”

“Keep up your heart! We’ll get you!” bellowed Mr. Smallwood.

Jack essayed a feeble wave in response, with the result that he was once more engulfed. But in a few moments he was safe and a dozen pairs of strong arms had drawn him and Dick Sanders into Mr. Smallwood’s boat.

“Heavens, lad, what a dive,” cried the third mate admiringly, when Jack was somewhat recovered and Dick lay covered with seamen’s coats on the floor of the boat.

“Gracious, we thought you were a goner!” exclaimed Raynor, “when the cattle made the first charge. I guess you didn’t hear it, being below. We all came close to being caught. The man 115 on the forecastle, who was unconscious by the time we got on board, was reached in time to be lowered into one of the boats. In the confusion, we thought you were among us. It was not till we reached the boats again that we found our mistake.”

“In the meantime,” said Mr. Smallwood, “those poor devils of steers had reached the rail and not liking the look of the water any better than the fire, charged back again. It was just as the second ‘wave,’ as you might call it, was coming for you that we saw you weren’t with us. Suddenly we sighted you with that poor kid there,” he nodded to the bottom of the boat, “right in the line of their charge.”

“If it hadn’t been for your warning shout, I might not have been here now,” said Jack.

“I saw that and so I yelled with all my power,” said the third officer, “but lad,” he went on, slapping Jack on the back, “when I saw what you were going to do, I regretted having warned you.”

116 “It was the only thing to do,” said Jack. “We wouldn’t have stood a chance if we had remained where we were,” and he explained that it was impossible to find shelter on the flush deck or to retreat back into the forecastle.

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” said Mr. Smallwood, “but it gave me a turn when I saw you come sky-hottling off that bow. But,—great Christmas,—look yonder.”

He pointed back at the burning ship. By her own light they saw her pitch heavily forward, hesitate an instant and then, without further warning, and amidst a piteous bellowing that sounded like a death-wail, shoot downward to the depths of the ocean. In an instant the light she had spread across the rough sea had vanished, and by contrast, the night appeared to have suddenly solidified about them in velvety blackness. A moment later a blinding white light groped across the waste of tossing waters and enveloped them in its glow. It was the searchlight of the St. Mark and it accompanied 117 them with its cheering light till they reached the ship’s side.

They were greeted amid acclamation, and Dick Sanders was at once taken charge of by the ship’s doctor and some lady passengers. The man who had been rescued had, by this time, however, sufficiently recovered to accompany Mr. Smallwood, Bill and Jack to Captain Jameson’s cabin, where that officer was eagerly waiting to hear the details of the rescue.

The rescued sailor, whose name was Mark Cherry, soon told them the story of the disaster to the Buffalonian, a British cattle ship which had left New York for London several days previously. Early that evening the craft had been overtaken by a German cruiser and ordered to surrender. Every one on board was made prisoner, and some of the cattle taken, when the British captain, seized by a sudden fit of anger, struck the German commander in the face. He was instantly ironed, as were his officers, Mark Cherry observing all this from under 118 the cover of a boat where he had been working when the cruiser took the cattle craft, and in which he had remained hidden.

In revenge, apparently, for the British captain’s attack on him, the German commander had, on his return to his own ship, ordered the Buffalonian fired upon by the big guns. The hidden sailor crouched in terror in his place of concealment while the cannon boomed. He thought his last hour had come. The projectiles shrieked through the sternworks of the ship and one, he thought, had struck amidships (which accounted for the vessel’s foundering).

At length, appearing to tire of this, the German cruiser put about and steamed away. Cherry crept from his hiding place where he had remained paralyzed with fright throughout the bombardment, and making for the wireless room sent out the only signal he knew, the S. O. S., which he had learned from a friendly wireless man, in case there ever came a time when it would be a matter of life and death to 119 him to use it. This explained why no answer came to Muller’s frantic calls after the first distress signal.

It was only a few moments after this call that flames burst from the shattered stern, and Cherry knew that unless help came, his hours were numbered. So confused and terrified was he by his desperate situation, that it was not till Jack’s appearance on the scene, he remembered little Dick Sanders, the cabin boy, lying sick in his bunk below. (It may be said here that with care and good treatment the lad quickly recovered his health, and he and Mark Cherry were put to work with the crew of the St. Mark.) Thus, without further incident, the English Channel was reached and Jack began busily to try to communicate with the firm’s London agents for instructions as to docking orders.

While awaiting orders, which the wireless had told the St. Mark’s captain were not ready for transmission, the big liner stood “off and on” at the mouth of the channel. It was wearing work, and all looked forward eagerly to the day when their destination would be settled and they could proceed.

Jack felt the monotony of it no less than anyone else on board, but he spent a good many busy hours perfecting an attachment for a wireless coherer which he hoped would prove of great value in the future, and possibly prove as profitable as the Universal Detector, to which allusion has already been made in “The Ocean Wireless Boys” and “The Naval Code.” One night, after working for some time at some 121 rather abstruse calculations in this connection, he decided to abandon the work for the night and take a stroll on deck before turning in.

Raynor, he knew, was finishing up the last of a series of match games of checkers, so he did not bother to look up his friend. Knowing that Bill was busily engaged, Jack was rather surprised when, at his fourth or fifth turn up and down the deck, which was almost deserted, a steward stepped up to him with a note.

It proved to be from Raynor and read as follows:

“Dear Jack:

“Meet me at once in the stern where we can talk without being spied on. The steward will show you where. I have something important to tell you about Radwig.

“This is very peculiar,” mused Jack, and then, turning to the steward he asked:

122 “Did Mr. Raynor give you this?”

“Yes, sir, and he told me to bring you to where he was waiting, sir,” was the obsequious response.

“All right, lead on,” said Jack and then to himself he added: “I can’t in the least make out why old Bill should be so secretive. I might just as well have met him in his cabin. But maybe he is being watched, and thinks the place he has appointed would be better.”

The steward led the way aft through a maze of corridors and passages. At last they arrived far in the stern of the ship where the unlighted passages showed no cabins were occupied. The twenty first-class passengers had all been booked amidships, thus the hundreds of cabins opening on the stern passages were unoccupied and nobody went near them.

“You’ve no idea why Mr. Raynor selected this part of the ship to meet me?” said Jack, as he followed the man who lighted the way with an electric torch.

123 “No, sir,” he replied, with a shake of his head. “I suppose he had his reasons, sir.”

“No doubt, but this is an odd part of the ship to keep an appointment,” said Jack. “We must be far away from the occupied cabins.”

“Oh, yes, sir. Almost a tenth of a mile. Wonderful, ain’t it, sir, the size of these big ships? A fellow could yell his lungs out in this part of the vessel, sir, and things, being as they are, and the cabins empty and all, nobody could hear him.”

“I suppose not,” said Jack idly. “Are we nearly there?”

“Yes, sir. Just turn down this passage, sir. Right to the left, sir, mind that step and—” Crash!

A great burst of light, as if a sudden explosion had occurred in front of him blinded Jack, and at the same instant he felt a violent blow on the back of the head. Then the bright light vanished with a loud report and he seemed to swim for an instant, in blackness. Everything went 124 out, as if a light had been switched off, and the lad pitched heavily forward on his face.

“Good, that will settle his hash for a while,” muttered a voice, and Radwig, a short, wicked-looking bludgeon in his hand, bent over the senseless boy. By the German’s side was another man, a short, thick-set, clean-shaven fellow with a projecting jaw, known on the passenger list as Mr. Duncan Ewing, of Chicago.

The light of the steward’s torch illumined their faces as they stood above the recumbent young wireless boy.

“I say, sir,” muttered the man, “I know you’ve paid me well and all, sir, but I didn’t bargain for no murdering business, sir. I——”

“Don’t be an idiot,” snapped Radwig impatiently. “We haven’t hurt him. See, he’s beginning to stir. Now then, Schultz——”

Radwig bent and took up the limp body by the head while Mr. Duncan Ewing, who answered with alacrity to the name of Schultz, laid hold of poor Jack by the feet.

125 “Now, steward,” said Radwig, as they carried their burden into an empty cabin, “keep a stiff upper lip till we dock, and then I don’t care what happens. You’ll be well taken care of. Don’t forget that.”

“Yes, sir, I know, sir,” said the man, whose hand was trembling as he held the torch; “but I don’t like the business, sir. If it wasn’t for my poor wife being sick and needing the money, and all—-”

“That will do. Go get us the lamp you promised. In the meantime we’ll revive this young fellow and show you that he’s not dead.”

From a carafe of stale water that stood on the washstand, Radwig dashed a liberal application in Jack’s face. He loosened the lad’s collar and chafed his wrists. Jack moaned, stirred, and opened his eyes. For a moment his swimming senses refused to rally to his call. Then, with a flash, he realized what had happened.

“Radwig, you scoundrel!” he exclaimed, “what is the meaning of this outrage?”

126 “Just a delicate little way of reminding you that it is not well to thwart the wishes of Herr Professor Radwig,” was the reply. “Schultz, my dear fellow, shut that door. No, wait a moment, here comes our man with the lamp. That’s better.”

He took the lamp from the steward, and set it in a frame on the wall provided for it in case the electric light failed from any cause. The steward, still pale and shaky, hurried away after one glance at Jack.

“And now,” said Radwig, “we will leave you to your reflections, my young friend. It will do you no good to shout. Under present conditions this part of the ship is uninhabited. No one comes near it. As for trying to force the door after we have gone, it would be wasted labor. I have taken the pains to affix bolts to the outside of it. Bread you will find, and some water, under the bunk. I advise you to be sparing of it, for you will not get any more and now—auf wiedersehn.”

127 He opened the door, motioned Schultz out, and turned a malevolent smile on the boy. With a shout, Jack flung himself forward, but the door slammed in his face.

He heard a laugh from outside, a laugh that made his blood boil and his fists clench. He fell against the door and wrenched at it furiously. But already the bolts outside had been shot into place and the portal held firmly.

“Now don’t lose your temper,” begged Radwig mockingly from without; “it’s very bad, very bad for the digestion. I would recommend you to spend your time mediating over the manifest advantages of being obliging. Good-night.”

Jack, listening at the bolted door, heard their footsteps die away down the deserted passageway.

“Man overboard!”

Bill, making his way along the deck to the wireless room companionway, heard the thrilling cry and joined the rush of passengers to the stern rail from whence the shout had come. Radwig and Schultz stood there with every expression of alarm on their faces.

The captain came hurrying up.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” he demanded.

“Somebody fell overboard,” declared Radwig; “we heard a splash and hastened here at once to cut loose a life belt.”

“Lower a boat at once,” commanded the captain; “slow down the engines.”

The petty officer to whom the command had 129 been given, hurried off at top speed to the bridge while the captain asked more questions of Radwig and his companion. But they could tell nothing more definite than that they had heard a splash and a cry and that was all. They had not seen who was the victim of the accident.

The captain decided to call a roll of passengers and crew at once. While the boat was lowered, and was rowed to and fro, on the dark waters, this work went on. When it was over, there was only one person on board found to be missing. This was, of course, Jack Ready. The cunning of Radwig had evolved this clever plan to obviate the search that would be surely made on the ship for the imprisoned young wireless lad when his absence from duty was discovered. If the lad was believed to be drowned, of course, no effort would be made to find him on board and he and Schultz would be safe from the results of their rascality. It was a clever though simple scheme and it worked to perfection, for after an hour of investigation the captain was 130 forced to conclude that Jack had, in some inexplicable manner, fallen overboard and had perished.

But there was one person on board who did not accept this theory, and that was Bill Raynor. By no figuring could he bring himself to believe that Jack had fallen into the sea. In the first place, the rail was almost breast high, and in the second, Jack was too good a sailor to have lost his head and toppled from the ship.

“I am convinced he’ll turn up,” he told Mullen in the wireless room.

“Yes, but a thorough search was made for him without result,” objected the other.

“Never mind, something seems to tell me that he is all right,” protested Bill.

“I’m afraid you are deluding yourself,” said Mullen, shaking his head. “When he fell overboard——”

“You mean if he fell overboard,” interrupted Bill.

“Why, you surely don’t doubt that!” 131 exclaimed Mullen; “a splash is heard and following that a canvass of the ship shows that Jack Ready is missing. If he wasn’t drowned, where is he?”

“I admit that it sounds like a poser,” said Bill. “See here, I’m not absolutely certain that he did go overboard at all.”

“What?” Mullen stared at Raynor as if he thought he had suddenly been bereft of his senses.

“I mean what I say,” repeated Bill slowly. “I’m not sure that he did go overboard.”

“In that case he must be on board the ship.”

“Exactly.”

“But why should he be hiding?”

“He’s not hiding.”

“Then why doesn’t he show up?”

“Because he’s been hidden,” replied Bill.

“Oh, that’s too fantastic an idea,” cried Mullen.

“I know it sounds wild—almost crazy, in fact, but I simply cannot help feeling it.”

132 “I wish I could think the same way,” said Mullen, and the tone of his voice left no room to doubt that he meant what he said.

In the meantime, how was it with Jack? Confined in the stuffy cabin, lighted only by the smoky lamp, his head ached intolerably from the cruel blow that had been dealt him. In fact, it was not till the following morning that he felt himself again.

Neither of the men who had made him a prisoner came near the cabin in which he was confined, and although he tried shouting for aid till his throat was sore, nobody appeared to hear him. The boy began to be seriously alarmed over his predicament.

Radwig had told him in so many words, that neither he nor Schultz intended to return to the cabin. The water and bread left him would not suffice for more than a few hours. By the time the cabin was entered by some employee of the ship, it was entirely probable that the aid would come too late. Luckily for him, his mental 133 anguish was not increased by knowledge of the story of his death by drowning that had circulated through the ship. Had he known of this, it is likely that, plucky as the lad was, he would have given way entirely to despair.

The cabin was an inside one, so that there was no porthole through which he could project his head and call for aid. Examination of the small chamber, even to the length of pulling up the carpet, showed that there was no means of escape short of forcing open the door and that Jack, strong as he was, was unable to accomplish, although he wore out his muscles trying it.

The hours passed by with dragging feet until it seemed to the boy that he must have been in the bolted cabin for years instead of hours. The lamp guttered and went out, leaving him plunged in pitchy darkness. It was the last straw. Jack flung himself on the bunk and buried his head in his hands. How long he lay thus he did not know, but he was aroused and his 134 heart set suddenly in a wild flutter by the sound of approaching footsteps and voices.

He shouted aloud:

“Help, for heaven’s sake, help!”

Then he sat silent, hardly daring to believe that there was a possibility of his rescue. More probably the voices and footsteps were those of Radwig and his rascally accomplice.

In an agony of apprehension, Jack sat in the darkness waiting for the answer to his cry for aid.

We must now go back to an occurrence that happened earlier in the evening. The ship had finally received orders to dock at Southampton and was proceeding at a fast clip up the Channel when the telephone in the wireless room rang and a voice inquired for Bill Raynor. Summoned to the wire by Mullen, Bill, who had just entered the station after a miserable day of anxiety for Jack, replied and found that he had been called by the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Moore.

“There has been an accident,” said the doctor; “one of the men has been badly injured. He says he wants to see you without delay.”

“But I know none of the crew,” said Bill.

“This man evidently knows you, however,” 136 returned the doctor, “and I wish you would come as soon as possible. He appears to be worrying over something and says he cannot rest till he has seen you.”

Greatly mystified, Bill obeyed the summons. On entering the doctor’s cabin he saw, stretched on the lower bunk, and swathed in bandages, the figure of a man who turned a pair of sunken eyes on him.

“One of the stewards,” whispered the doctor. “Poor fellow. Badly scalded in the galley.”

He turned to the sufferer.

“This is Mr. Raynor, whom you wanted to see,” he said.

“Let him come here,” said the man feebly.

Bill approached the man’s side.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I want to ease my conscience of a great burden. Bend low so that you can hear me. It hurts when I talk loud.”

Bill bent over the pitiable, bandaged form.

“What do you want to tell me?” he said.

137 “That your friend, Mr. Ready, is a prisoner on this steamer,” was the reply that brought an exclamation of amazement from Bill.

He was half-inclined to believe the man was delirious for an instant, but a moment later revised this opinion.

“How do you know this?” he asked, when he had recovered from his astonishment.

“I helped the plotters who put him there,” moaned the man. “They were Germans, like myself, and they told me that if he was not shut up he would betray them to the English authorities as soon as the ship docked. They gave me money and I let them have the key to a cabin far in the stern of the vessel. They forged a note to him and trapped him when, in answer to it, I led him to where they were waiting.”

“And he is there now?” cried Bill.

The man nodded slowly.

“So far as I know. They had screwed bolts on the door.”

“He was not hurt?” demanded Bill.

138 “Not seriously; but they struck him on the head.”

“The brutes,” cried Bill.

“You know who they were, then?”

“I can guess—a man named Radwig and another named Schultz.”

The bandaged man nodded again.

“You have named them correctly.”

“Doctor!” exclaimed Bill, “you have heard what this man has said. Can you leave him long enough to go with me to Captain Jameson?”

“Gladly, my boy. But of all extraordinary tales——”

“It is true, upon my word of honor,” groaned the injured man. “The number of the cabin is 14. The chief steward has the keys. I stole them from his desk to open the stateroom and placed them back again without his knowledge.”

“And just to think,” muttered Bill, as he and the doctor hastened from the injured man’s side, “that if it had not been for that accident we’d never have known a thing about poor old Jack’s 139 plight till too late. After all, that feeling I had was correct.”

Captain Jameson summoned the chief steward as soon as he had heard Bill’s story and together the commander, and the others, hastened through the maze of corridors leading to stateroom 14. Theirs were the voices the boy had heard, and in ten minutes’ time he was wringing Bill’s hand and telling, to an indignant group, the story of Radwig’s outrage.

The captain’s indignation knew no bounds.

“I’ll have those rascals in irons before we drop anchor!” he exclaimed. “We are nearing Southampton now and if that man had not met with his accident they might have landed and escaped scot free.”

Jack was weakened by his trying experience, but he was not too exhausted not to be able to accompany the officer to Radwig’s cabin. A knock on the door brought an immediate answer:

“Come in.”

140 “Keep back,” whispered the captain to Jack, “I want to see how far these rascals will incriminate themselves.”

Accordingly, Jack and the others kept out of sight as the door was opened and Captain Jameson stepped inside, but as the portal was left ajar, they could hear what went on within.

“You know my friend, Mr. Ewing,” said Radwig, in oily tones, indicating Schultz, who, it will be recalled, had adopted that alias, and who was seated in Radwig’s cabin engaged over a valise full of papers.

The captain bowed his acknowledgment of the introduction.

“And to what am I to attribute the honor of this visit?” said Radwig. “Possibly something connected with the formalities of landing? I am informed we shall be in harbor in a short time now.”

“That is correct,” said the captain bruskly, “and we shall land minus one of the ship’s company.”

141 “You mean poor young Ready, the wireless operator,” said Radwig. “It was too bad about that unfortunate lad. If my friend and myself had been a few seconds earlier we might have saved him before he went overboard.”

“Well, of all the precious hypocrites,” gasped Bill under his breath.

“He takes the grand trophy,” breathed Jack, who had been told of the cleverly arranged story of his death that had been circulated.

“There is not a question but that he is drowned, I’m afraid,” came from Schultz the next minute. Then was heard the captain’s voice.

“Why, yes, gentlemen, there is,” he said; “in fact, there is every question for here he is!”

As if he had been an actor answering his “cue,” Jack stepped into the lighted doorway. At the sight of him, the two miscreants shrank back as if they had seen a ghost.

“Oh, I’m real enough, Messrs. Radwig and Schultz,” smiled Jack, as the others crowded in behind him.

142 “And it will be my duty to hand you both over to the British authorities,” snapped the captain to the speechless pair.

Radwig made a sudden dart for the valise full of documents. His move was so unexpected that before they could stop him he had hurled it out through the open porthole. Then, with a snarl of rage, he flung himself at Jack. But the captain’s erect figure interposed.

“Stand where you are,” he ordered, and Radwig found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver.

“Hold out your hands,” he ordered and cringing, the two miscreants obeyed.

“Jones,” he added, addressing the chief steward, “oblige me by slipping those handcuffs on the men.”

The click of the steel bracelets appeared to arouse Radwig to speech.

“You—you—young whelp,” he shouted, shaking his manacled fists at Jack. “Whatever may be my fate, I’ll remember you and see that you 143 are attended to if it takes every penny and every resource I have.”

“Violence won’t do you any good,” commented the captain quietly, “and if I know anything of the English law you are apt to spend quite some time in Great Britain. Jones, march the prisoners to the smoking room and detain them there till the ship docks.”

Sullenly, the two prisoners shuffled out of the cabin and were marched past wondering passengers to their place of detention. Three hours later, when the ship docked, the boys saw them being taken ashore by British officials. A thorough ransacking of their cabin had failed to reveal any incriminating documents, although the valise which Radwig had hurled out of the porthole undoubtedly had contained such papers.

At Southampton they learned that the St. Mark was likely to be tied up for some time. Rumors of mines and torpedoes made the owners unwilling to risk her loss. The two lads, 144 therefore, left the vessel, and proceeded to London, where their instructions were to visit agents of the line and learn if anything had been heard of Tom Jukes. They found the city thronged with marching soldiers and territorials, while everywhere proclamations calling on the men of England to enlist were posted. Otherwise, however, everything appeared to be going on as if there were no war.

Inquiry at the agents resulted in a meagre clue to the whereabouts of the lad of whom they were in search. He had wired for funds from Malines, a Belgian town, a few days before war was declared and the Germans invaded Belgium. Since then nothing had been heard of him.

The magnitude of their task appeared greater than ever to the two lads now that they had actually started the work. But Jack was not the sort of lad to give up at the first difficulty.

“We’ll go to Belgium,” he announced, but right here a stumbling block appeared.

145 There were no longer regular steamers running to Belgian ports, and the small and infrequent craft that did venture had been warned by the Admiralty that the North Sea was thickly sown with mines. It was a journey full of peril but, nothing daunted, Jack and Bill journeyed to Grimsby, a town on the east coast, where they were told they might be able to engage passage on a trawler, provided they could find a captain adventurous enough to take them across.

All this took up valuable time, for in the confusion and turmoil of war time, business was harder to transact than in normal times. Two days were consumed in London, but on the evening of the second they started for Grimsby. As they took their seats in the train, a newsboy came along shouting “War Extras.” They bought some of his papers and settled back to read them.

“Well, here’s an encouraging item,” said Bill ironically, as the train moved out. He pointed to a despatch headed:

146 “Trawler destroyed by mines in the North Sea.”

“We’ll have to take our chances,” decided Jack, “but, hullo—what’s this?” he exclaimed suddenly; “listen here, Bill.”

He read excitedly from his paper:

“The two prisoners arrested as German military agents on the arrival of the American liner St. Mark at Southampton two days ago have, in some mysterious manner, escaped. Four of their guards are under arrest. It is hinted that bribery was used to effect the Germans’ liberty.”

It was with Captain Hoeseason of the trawler Barley Rig that the boys finally succeeded in striking a bargain to land them in Antwerp. The captain of the craft, who was also her owner, was a giant of a man, more than six feet tall in his great sea boots and dressed in rough fisherman’s garb. The boys found him in a small, waterfront inn, with a thatched roof and red window curtains which bore the sign of the Magpie and Shark, apparently, in the owner’s estimation, a happy combination of land and sea.

Captain Hoeseason declared that he knew the North Sea like a book and that there would be no danger of encountering mines if they sailed with him. His craft would be ready at the long fish dock at six the next morning, he declared, 148 and at that hour the boys presented themselves.

The crew of the Barley Rig were a rough, weather-beaten looking set of men, and almost immediately, upon the boy’s arrival, they set to work, under the hoarsely bawled orders of Captain Hoeseason, setting the fisher craft’s great red sails. At last all was ready. Under a brisk breeze, that momentarily grew stronger, the trawler slipped out to sea.

“They’re a rough-looking lot on this craft,” observed Jack to Bill, as the Barley Rig began to toss about in a way that would have been trying to less experienced sailors.

“Yes, I’m glad you’ve got that money in your money-belt,” said Bill, referring to the American gold they carried. “They have none of them seen it, thank goodness, or we might have cause to worry.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” declared Jack. “They may be honest enough for all their rough looks. I imagine that the North Sea fishery doesn’t tend to make men very refined looking.”

149 “At all events it hasn’t had that effect on this crew,” laughed Bill.

At noon they were summoned, by the cook’s beating on a tin pan, to a dinner of fried fish and boiled potatoes. The little cabin where they ate it reeked of the fish that for years had formed the Barley Rig’s cargo, and was lighted, for it had no openings but the companionway above, by a swinging, smoking lamp of what was known among the fishermen as the “pot” variety. But it would have taken more than this to dull the keen edges of the boys’ appetites, whet to razor sharpness by the freshening wind.

The cook, an old, bent man, with a wild blue eye, stood by his rusty stove watching as they devoured what was set before them. Overhead they could hear the trample of feet and the occasional impact of a big wave as it broke in spray over the bow.

“It’s getting rougher,” remarked Jack.

“Seems to be,” agreed Bill; “this is a small boat to be out in a storm.”

150 “They say that the trawlers are fine sea boats,” declared Jack.

There was no doubt that it was getting rougher. By mid-afternoon the green seas with breaking, white tops, were leaping mountainously under a scudding gray sky. Still, the captain of the Barley Rig did not take in a reef of his sails. He stood beside the tiller, which was gripped by a young giant of a fisher in jersey and boots, giving an occasional order and puffing vigorously at his stubby clay pipe.

Beside an occasional gruff word, Captain Hoeseason did not have much to say to his passengers, but they noticed that his eyes followed them constantly.

“I can’t shake off an idea that the fellow has some mischief in mind,” declared Bill, after he had noticed the furtive scrutiny the skipper of the Barley Rig was bestowing on them.

“Nonsense,” declared Jack. “I made a few inquiries about him and he appears to bear a good character. Anyhow, we are going among 151 dangers beside which this trip won’t appear as anything, so don’t get nervous at the start off.”

As dusk began to settle down, it showed a wild scene. The trawler appeared to be alone on the troubled ocean; at least, no other craft was within sight. The wind howled dismally through the cordage, and the reefed sails tore at their ropes as if they would part at any moment.

“Bad weather, Captain,” said Jack, as he and Bill stood bracing themselves against a back stay.

“Oh, aye,” rejoined the captain, taking out his pipe like a stopper to permit himself speech, “but she’ll be worse afore she gits better.”

He was right. By nightfall, it was blowing a gale, and the big seas were breaking over the Barley Rig, drenching everything. Water fell in cataracts down the cabin companionway every time the hatch was opened. Cooking was impossible, and the boys made their supper on hard ship biscuit and water while a small flood washed about their feet.

152 “This is awful, Jack,” remarked Bill after a lurch that had sent him sliding across the cabin.

“Cheer up, old fellow, it might be worse,” retorted Jack cheerily.

Bill gave a groan.

“I don’t see how it could be, unless we go to the bottom,” Bill grumbled dismally. “You don’t think there’s any danger of that, Jack, do you?”

“Not a bit of it. This craft has weathered many a storm as bad or worse than this, I don’t doubt,” declared Jack stoutly, although the laboring of the storm-stricken Barley Rig was beginning to get on his nerves.

Not long after the completion of their scanty meal, the captain came below and snatched a bite. He was dripping from head to foot and reported the gale as increasing in violence.

“My advice to you younkers is to turn in,” he said. “You can have my bunk—that one yonder. I’ll be on deck all night and so will ’tother lads.”

The bunk in question was not much more than 153 a shelf with some very dubious-looking blankets piled untidily on it. But the boys were tired, and so they clambered up and composed themselves to rest with the deck within a foot of their faces, so low was the cabin ceiling.

For a time sleep was impossible. The buffeting blows that the big waves struck the laboring trawler made her shake and creak as if she would go to pieces at any moment. On deck the heavy trampling of sea boots kept up without intermission. The smoky lamp swung drearily. The motion grew so violent at times that they were almost pitched out of the bunk. In some corner into which he had dragged himself, they could hear the old cook snoring and mumbling in his sleep.

But at last, despite all this, tired nature asserted herself and they dozed off, while outside, the storm howled and shrieked like a furious and sentient creature aroused to frenzy and extermination.

About midnight, Jack awakened with a start and a vague feeling that all was not well. The Barley Rig was still tossing violently and for a few moments after he opened his eyes, the lad who had slept on the outside of the bunk felt dazed.

Then he became aware that Captain Hoeseason was standing near to him, feeling about under the mattress.

“He’s trying to rob us,” thought Jack. “What shall I do?”

The thought flashed across him that he had no weapon, and that Hoeseason was probably armed. He was undecided whether to feign sleep or not, for the captain of the Barley Rig was apparently not yet aware that the boy was 155 awake, when he was saved the trouble of making a decision.

He was grasped roughly by the shoulder and violently shaken. The giant captain, with an evil look in his eyes, stood above him, a huge seaman’s knife glimmering in his hand under the light of the guttering lamp.

“Now, younker,” he said, in his hoarse tones, with a ferocious look, “I ain’t goin’ ter beat about the bush. I’ve come after that money of yourn.”

“What money?” demanded Jack, deeming it wisest to “spar for time,” and see if he could not devise some way out of the dilemma.

“Now, don’t play foxey, Mister Yankee kid,” snarled the huge fisherman; “you know as well as I do. The money in that belt I heard you talking to your chum about.”

“I know nothing about it,” declared Jack. “When I paid you I gave you almost all the money I had. I am looking to get fresh funds in Antwerp.”

156 The man tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder and fairly yanked him out of the bunk. He placed his knife between his teeth and compelling Jack to hold his arms above his head he searched him. Jack’s heart sank. He knew the money belt was in the bunk under the pillow. Beyond doubt this desperate ruffian would search the sleeping place before very long and discover its hiding place.

“So it ain’t on you,” snarled Hoeseason, when he had finished his search, “but I’ll bet a guinea it ain’t far away. Stand where you are and don’t move as you value your life while I overhaul the bunk.”

A moment later an exclamation of savage delight burst from his bearded lips.

“Ah! Here it is. See, younker, I was bound to find it and—— What the——?”

As the giant of a man stood half-facing him, Jack gathered himself for a crouching leap. He sprang straight at the man’s legs and, catching him entirely by surprise, brought him to the floor with a crash that could be heard above the raging of the storm.

Jack gathered himself for a crouching leap and sprang straight at the man’s legs.—Page 156

157 “Bill! Bill!” he shouted.

There was a stir in the bunk above.

“Help me, quick. He’ll be too much for me alone.”

“What in the world, Jack Ready——?”

“Don’t ask questions. Come, quick!”

Bill clambered out of his bunk with alacrity as soon as he saw what was going forward. Hoeseason, who had been, luckily for Jack, slightly stunned by the fall, lay still. In his fall the knife had flown from his hand and lay half-way across the cabin.

“The knife, Bill,” panted Jack, “the knife before he comes to. I dare not take chances with him.”

Bill quickly fetched the weapon.

“So he did try to rob us after all,” he said. “The precious ruffian, I didn’t like his looks from the start.”

“Never mind about that now, Bill, but hustle 158 and get some rope. We must tie him, for when he comes out of this he’ll be a match for the two of us.”

There were plenty of odd bits of rope lying about the cabin on lockers that ran down one side of it. Bill procured several lengths, and in a few moments, the semi-conscious giant was bound hand and foot.

In the meantime, Jack fastened the money belt round his waist once more.

“I wish we had pistols,” he said, as they stood watching the slow return of consciousness to the bound captain’s face.

“Why, this fellow is harmless now,” rejoined Bill.

“Yes, but you have forgotten the rest of the crew, haven’t you?”

“Great Scott, I had for a moment. Do you think they are in league with him?”

“I don’t know, but they are bound to find out his plight sooner or later and we shall have to reckon with them. We’re in a tight place, Bill.”

159 Captain Hoeseason began to stir. He rolled his eyes uneasily, and the next moment discovered that he was tied fast.

“You young imps,” he roared in stentorian tones, “cut me loose instantly, or when I do get free I’ll have such a vengeance on you as will——”

“It won’t do you any good to rave like that, captain,” declared Jack, “and, moreover, we——”

The sentence was never finished. The fabric of the Barley Rig seemed to heave suddenly upwards and then rush apart. There was a burst of blinding flame, and a report that drove the ear drums in. The next instant, as it seemed to them, there was an inrush of water on the tide of which the boys were swept out into the darkness of the raging seas.

The trawler vanished almost as quickly as the terrific flash of flame from the mine that she had struck, and which had ended her career for all time.

The moments that followed were the most terrible that Jack had ever known in his adventurous life at sea. Cast adrift in the dark night and wild sea, he was at first completely bewildered. The very suddenness with which the end of the Barley Rig had come had benumbed him.

But ere long, the blind instinct of life asserted itself. He struck out, hoping to find some wreckage with which to sustain himself, for in that rolling, breaking sea, he could not have hoped to remain afloat long without some support.

Wave after wave swept over the bravely battling lad, half choking him in spite of the fact that he was an experienced and powerful swimmer.

161 “Great Scott!” he thought with dismay. “If I can’t find some support to cling to before long, I’m a goner. This is the worst ever.”

In addition to the difficulty of fighting the baffling waves, Jack now began to experience a fresh obstacle to keeping afloat. The weight of the heavy money belt at his waist seemed to be drawing him remorselessly down toward the depths.

At first, he had difficulty in accounting for the leaden feeling that possessed him after being a short time in the water. But suddenly he recalled the money belt with its weight of gold.

“I’ll stick it out as long as I can,” resolved the boy, “and then unfasten the buckle and let the money sink.”

A section of wreckage came within his grasp at that moment. He made a wild grab for it, but a great wave swept it beyond his reach. He began to feel numb and chilled and utterly incapable of battling for his life much longer. An odd, reckless feeling of indifference came 162 over him. His movements became automatic, no longer consciously directed.

Suddenly he recollected the money belt that dragged at his body like a leaden weight. He fumbled with the buckle with one hand while he trod water. But the strap proved obdurate. His chilled fingers could not undo it.

“It is the end,” murmured the exhausted boy. “I’m all in, and can’t keep up the fight any longer.”

A strange, dreamy sort of feeling crept over him. He felt the water closing over his head. Then, suddenly he seemed to be dragged skyward. His senses swam and he knew nothing more. When he opened his eyes, it was daylight. He lay in the bottom of a small boat that was being tossed about like a chip on the rough sea which, although it had moderated to some extent, was still running high.

“Where on earth am I and what has happened?” he wondered in the first few seconds of returning consciousness. “I remember that 163 terrible feeling that all was over, that I was drowning and——”

“Thank goodness you’re all right again, old fellow.”

“Bill!” cried the young wireless man wildly, as he recognized the voice, “is that really you or your ghost? Am I dreaming or drowned?”

“Neither, I hope,” rejoined Bill, helping his chum to raise himself in the bottom of the boat, “but you came mighty near being the latter if I hadn’t providentially come within reach of you just in time.”

“Thank heaven you did,” replied Jack fervently, “but tell me, how did it all happen? I don’t understand. The last I can recollect is going under and thinking that all was over.”

“Which must have been just about the time I grabbed you by the hair and got you on board somehow,” continued Bill. “I don’t know how I did it, but I succeeded.”

“But how did you come to be in the boat?” Jack wanted to know.

164 “Well, you see when we were both swept out of that cabin—I guess the trawler must have been broken in half by the explosion,—when we were both swept out, I didn’t know what was happening and just struck out blindly.”

“Same here,” observed Jack. “I was looking for a bit of wreckage to float on, but none came my way.”

“I don’t know, though I guess I answer that description,” chuckled Bill, regarding himself with critical eyes. He was only half dressed, and the few garments he had on, for it will be recalled that neither of the boys had had time to dress, had been almost ripped from him. Nor was Jack in any better plight.

“Anyhow,” went on Bill, “the first thing I struck was this boat. It’s the small one that hung astern of the trawler. The explosion, which struck about midships, I guess, hadn’t harmed it and it must have torn loose from its fastenings when the Barley Rig sank. I clambered into it and found it was half full of water. I 165 managed, with an old tin bucket, which luckily, hadn’t been washed overboard, to bale it to some extent, and—and then I heard you yell——”

“I don’t remember crying out,” interrupted Jack.

“Well, anyhow, you gave a good husky yowl and I glimpsed your head just alongside. I hauled you aboard and laid you in the bottom of the boat but I had not the least idea that it was you that I had the good fortune to rescue till daylight. You can imagine how glad I was.”

“But what are we going to do now? Have we oars?”

“No.”

“Water?”

“No.”

“Nor food?”

Bill shook his head.

“If we’re not sighted and picked up we’ll be in a bad fix, old fellow.”

“I’m afraid so. I guess we’re the sole survivors.”

166 “Yes, poor fellows. One can’t help feeling sorry even for that rascal Hoeseason.”

The boat, a small, not over tight ship’s yawl, swung on the top of a high wave. The boys eagerly took advantage of this to gaze out over the crests of the tossing water-mountains.

But the heaving, steel-gray sea was vacant of life. All they could see was a vast expanse of mighty rollers, desolate and cold under a leaden sky. They exchanged blank looks.

“Bill, old fellow, we’re up against it,” came from Jack.

“Well, I’ve known times when things looked considerably brighter,” admitted Bill dolefully.

Castaways on the open sea in a boat without water, food or oars!

It was a situation to frighten the bravest. To add to the peril of the boys’ position, they had too appalling evidence of the fact that the North Sea was strewn with floating mines which, even the impact of a small craft, like the one in which they were drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves, would serve to detonate.

Small wonder, then, that after a while conversation grew more and more desultory until at length they each sat silent, gloomily surveying their predicament. Fortunately, there was no hot sun to beat down on them and aggravate the thirst both were already beginning to feel. But even with cool weather they could not hope to 168 fight off the agonies of thirst for long. Food, so far, was a secondary consideration.

Then, too, the frail nature of their craft gave them cause for anxiety. The gale showed as yet no signs of breaking up. From time to time the ragged tops of great waves were ripped off by the fury of the wind, deluging the boat in spray. It was necessary to keep bailing constantly if they hoped to remain afloat.

The constant buffeting to which they were subjected was dizzying and nauseating. Both lads ached in every limb. In a way they were glad to have the exercise afforded by bailing, for it went a long way to keeping their minds employed and their limbs from stiffening in the cramped, wet boat.

Yet their nerves showed no outward sign of a breakdown. From time to time they exchanged sentences intended to be cheerful; but it was a ghastly sort of merriment of which they soon tired. Thus the hours wore away and darkness set in with a slight dimunition of the violence of 169 the wind and signs, by the clearing of the sky, that the break of the gale was at hand.

But they dared not sleep through the hours of darkness, except in hasty snatches. Had the bailing pail been left alone for even an hour, the boat inevitably would have been swamped. By midnight, though, the sea was much smoother. Their dizzied heads, racked by the incessant tossing, became clearer. They looked about them. Suddenly Jack gave a shout.

“Look! Look yonder!”

A short distance off, and apparently bearing down on them, were the red and green sidelights and the bright white mast-head signal of a steamer!

Bill broke into a shout.

“Hurray, Jack, we’re saved!”

“Not so fast, Bill. They may not see us in the dark.”

“That’s so. I’d give a million dollars, if I had it, for a box of matches and some good dry stuff to burn for a signal.”

170 “Not having those things, there’s no use worrying about them,” returned Jack quietly, “but say, Bill, see here.”

His voice was anxious. He gazed nervously at the approaching lights.

“That steamer’s coming right down on us. We can see both her sidelights.”

“Well, so much the better. She’s bound to see us.”

“Haven’t you thought of another possibility?”

“What do you mean?”

“Of a great danger?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“She’s headed straight for us and we can’t get out of the way. If she doesn’t change her course, it will be a miracle if she doesn’t run us down.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Bill in sobered tones. “What can we do?”

“Nothing but to sit tight and trust to luck.”

Both lads now sat with anxious eyes fixed on 171 the approaching lights. Nearer and nearer they came, traveling fast.

“Shout, Bill, shout with all your might,” enjoined Jack.

They began yelling at the top of their lungs. But those inexorable lights, like the eyes of some savage monster, still bore down menacingly on them. Already, in anticipation, they felt the impact of the sharp bow, the crash of smashed timbers and the suction of the propellers drawing them down to death.

“They don’t hear us,” said Jack. “If the lookout doesn’t sight us, we’re lost.”

The steamer was very close now. By straining their eyes they thought they could make out the dark outlines of her hull and spars against the clearing sky. Bill hid his face in his hands. He could not bear to look at the Juggernaut of the seas advancing to crush them. Jack, with more fortitude, sat erect with a thousand thoughts whirring through his brain.

The mighty bow loomed above the tiny chip 172 of a boat, throwing off a great wave. The comber caught the light craft and flung it aside. What seemed like a black cliff, with here and there a gleaming light piercing its face, raced past them, and the boat, with two white-faced, shaken boys in it, was left in the wake of the fast-moving steamer, safe, but being madly tossed about by the wash of her propellers. The danger had passed, almost by a hand’s breadth, but it was some time before they were sufficiently masters of themselves to discuss their escape.

Morning broke on a comparatively smooth sea, and two utterly exhausted, sunken-cheeked lads, weak from exposure and lack of nourishment.

“This thing has got to end one way or another before long,” declared Bill, his voice coming in a sort of croak from his parched throat.

“Yes, I’m afraid we can’t stick it out much longer, Bill,” assented Jack languidly.

“I’m beginning to see things,” muttered Bill; “black objects dancing about in the sun. Over there on the horizon, for instance, I can see a dark cloud that looks like a tower. I know it isn’t there, of course, but——”

“But, Bill, by hookey, it is!” cried Jack.

“What, are you going crazy, too?”

174 “That’s not a tower, but a steamer’s smoke, Bill,” declared Jack, after prolonged scrutiny. In a few minutes Bill became convinced that his chum was right.

“But will she pass near enough to see us?”

It was a question upon which much, indeed, their very existence, might depend.

On came the cloud of smoke, and now they could see the funnel and then the hull, of the steamer that was making it.

“Bill, I—I believe she’ll pass near us.”

Jack’s voice trembled and his eyes shone as if he were a victim of fever. Bill did not answer, but he clutched the gunwale with hands that shook, and fixed his gaze on the oncoming vessel. Neither boy dared to speak, but both of them felt that if the steamer did not sight them, it would be more than they could bear.

They stood up in the boat when they thought the craft was near enough to see and waved frantically, at the risk of upsetting the cranky little affair.

175 “Bill, she’s changing her course,” came from Jack’s parched and fevered lips.

“I believe she is. Yes, see there!”

Three white puffs of steam burst from the ship’s whistle. Then came the booming sound of her siren thrice repeated. The sweetest music produced by the finest musicians of both hemispheres could not have sounded as good to the boys at that moment as did the harsh roar of the steam whistle that showed them they had been sighted and that rescue was at hand. From the steamer’s stern flag-staff fluttered the Dutch ensign, proclaiming that she was a ship of a neutral power.

This was an additional cause of congratulation to the boys, for had they been picked up by a craft flying a belligerent flag, they might have become involved in fresh difficulties. In half an hour the steamer, a small freighter, was lying to not far off the drifting yawl, and a boat had been lowered and was rapidly pulled toward the castaways. In a short time they were on board, and 176 after being refreshed and provided with clothes, were able to tell their stories to Captain Van der Hagueen, the stout, red-faced little captain to whom they owed their safety.

The Zuyder Zee, the name of the little steamer, was bound, to the boys’ great joy, for Antwerp. She carried salt fish and herrings from Scotland and scented her entire vicinity with the aroma of her cargo. But the boys, as Bill expressed it, would have thought “a limburger cheese ship a paradise” after all they had gone through.

The next morning they steamed up the River Scheldt and came once more in sight of the towers and spires of the historic city which, it will be recalled, they had visited some time before on Jack’s first voyage. Captain Van der Hagueen told them that after discharging his cargo he meant to lay up his ship, in which he was part owner, at Antwerp till the war was over. The risk of floating mines in the North Sea was too great to encounter, he declared.

177 It was in the earlier days of the war and Antwerp, a city strongly fortified, had not been threatened, although every preparation was being made to receive the enemy if they did come. Barricades were being thrown up in the streets and the suburbs, and the thoroughfares were full of the queerly uniformed Belgian soldiers the boys had been so much amused at on their previous visit. Their amusement at Belgian soldiers had given way, by now, however, to admiration and respect for the sturdy little country of fighters that had managed to give a good account of itself against the most formidable army ever assembled.

The boys decided to seek out their good friend M. La Farge, the Minister of Government Railroads, who, it will be recalled, they had served on their first visit, and whose appreciation in the form of two handsomely engraved and inscribed gold watches were at that moment in Jack’s money belt, where he had luckily placed them for fear of robbery before they embarked on the 178 Barley Rig. It was fortunate that he had done so, otherwise it is doubtful if they would have obtained access to his offices, where they found him overwhelmed with work. The sight of the watches, however, proved an “open sesame” to the Minister’s presence, and the boys—who had in the meantime provided themselves with new outfits,—presently found themselves warmly shaking hands with their old friend who was unfeignedly glad to see them.

After the first greetings were over, Jack plunged into an explanation of their presence in Belgium in such stormy times. M. La Farge looked grave, but promised to do what he could through diplomatic and other sources to locate Tom Jukes.

“If, as you say, he has been traveling in state in a large auto, he ought to be easy to locate,” he assured them. “I will let you know what I have been able to discover to-morrow morning. Every auto entering the country is registered and its occupants kept track of. Rest assured I shall do my best for the two young friends to whom I can never be sufficiently grateful.”

Jack thanked him warmly for them both, and explained that while in London they had 180 communicated with the American consuls in Paris and Berlin, but that nothing had been heard at either place of Tom Jukes being among the refugees beseiging the American representatives.

“Possibly I shall have better success. At least, we must hope so,” said M. La Farge. “Much of the telegraph system is still intact, fortunately. At least rest on my promise that I will do all I can.”

As they had already visited the American consulate in Antwerp, where they had obtained no news, the two boys found themselves without anything to do but kill time as best they could till the next day. As they had spent much of their time on the Dutch steamer in sleep, they did not feel like turning in early and so, at Jack’s suggestion, they visited a theatre. But it was a gloomy manner of spending the evening, as it transpired. The inhabitants of Antwerp were more interested in the bulletin boards announcing the inroads of the German troops than in 181 entertainments. There was an air of anxiety and depression abroad that could not help but be contagious, and oppressed by the general atmosphere, the boys decided before the end of the performance to return to their hotel.

But Jack could not sleep. He lay awake tossing and turning for an hour or more. In the street he could hear the regular step and quick challenge of sentries. Occasionally, far off, came the sound of bugle calls.

All at once he became aware of another sound. It was one that was strange to him. He could liken it to nothing but the droning buzz of a giant bumblebee. It was at first faint; hardly audible in fact, except to strained ears, but it rapidly grew in volume, filling the whole air with the steady vibrating buzz.

The sound irritated Jack, sleepless as he was.

“It sounds for all the world as if there was a big buzz saw or a threshing machine at work,” he mused. “Where on earth does the racket come from?”

182 He lay awake listening for a few moments longer. Then he got out of bed and tiptoed across the room where Bill lay snoring violently.

The lad looked out of the window. The street and a public square lay far below him. Only a few lights shone on the thoroughfare. It appeared deserted but for the sentries marching up and down unceasingly.

“Nothing there,” said the boy to himself. “I guess I’ll turn in again.”

The buzzing sound had grown fainter now. It was hardly audible in fact. But for some reason it lingered in Jack’s mind. It was like half a dozen things he could think of and yet he could not recall ever having heard that precise sound before.

At last he dozed off, and then sank into a dream in which it seemed to him that he was somewhere far out in the country lying under a shady tree contentedly chewing on a bit of grass and gazing up through the leafy branches at the bright sky. But suddenly everything clouded 183 over. The landscape grew dark and sinister, and the leaves of the tree above him began to toss and sway in a harsh wind.

In his dream, Jack arose and standing up looked about him. It appeared to him as if he was gazing down from a height over an immense battlefield. He could see the dust and smoke as cannon were wheeled into position and then the flashes of flame and the belching of fire from the rifle pits. Men were mowed down like ripe grain in long windrows.

It was horrible but fascinating.

Then, all at once, came again that strange buzzing sound. But now it seemed to have in it a menacing note. It was like a terrible voice. The boy shuddered as he heard it, harsh and inexorable, filling the air, which seemed to vibrate to the steady humming.

It grew sharper and louder. Above all, the noise of the dream cannon and rifles, the boy could hear it. He awakened with a start, his heart beating rather wildly.

184 “That was a kind of a nightmare,” he said to himself. “Glad I woke up. I guess—what’s that?”

Again that humming sound filled the air as if a pulsing chord, strung at high tension, had been twanged.

“It’s outside!” exclaimed Jack, for the second time going to the window.

“It’s in the air!” he cried an instant later.

He turned his face upward. High above the city, against the stars, he could trace the outline of a gigantic cigar-shaped body. It was moving slowly far above him.

“An airship!” gasped the boy, and then the next instant:

“A Zeppelin!”

Something seemed to launch itself from the dark body of the immense aircraft and streak downward like a falling star. The next moment, from a part of the city some distance off, there was a brilliant flash of flame, and then an appalling report that shook the earth. But Jack 185 had no eyes for this at the moment. His gaze was fixed on the Zeppelin.

Having dealt destruction in one part of the city it was now making directly toward the hotel!

The boy watched it with a horrible fascination that held him speechless.

The death-dealing craft was destined to pass directly above the building that sheltered them and how many others. Craning his neck, Jack watched its flight above the sleeping city. Dark as death itself and, with no indication of its presence but the drone of its engines, the sky monster moved majestically toward him. It was then that Jack suddenly found his tongue as the death in the air approached till it was almost above his staring eyes.

“Bill,” he yelled, “Bill, wake up!”

He shook his chum’s shoulder violently.

“Whazzermarrer?” inquired Bill sleepily.

“Get up for your life. Fling on any old clothes. Let’s get out of here quick.”

186 “What’s up?” demanded Bill, wide awake now, and hastily pulling on some clothes, for he knew Jack would not have aroused him needlessly.

“It’s a Zeppelin, a giant German airship. She’s blown up a piece some blocks away and now she’s headed over here.”

At almost the same instant, a roar of artillery burst forth. The defenses of Antwerp had awakened and were concentrating their fire on the death-dealing monster of the sky. But as the first reports ripped the silence of the night, there came another and a mightier report. The hotel rocked to its foundations. A shower of plaster and debris crashed into the boys’ room, half burying them.

The sky slayer had struck again!

For a fragment of time,—while a man might have counted ten,—there was absolute silence following the shattering report of the bomb. Then came a babel of cries, shouts and women’s screams. Hastily throwing on whatever clothes came first, the two boys rushed out of the wrecked room.

But they did not do this without difficulty, for a mass of fallen plaster and debris blocked the door. In the corridor, an electric light still burned, and the force of the explosion appeared to have spent itself at the end of the passage where the boys’ room was situated.

“Wha—what happened?” stammered Bill, as they gained the corridor.

“It was a bomb, a bomb dropped from a 188 Zeppelin,” answered Jack, equally moved. “What a fiendish bit of business.”

“I only hope they don’t drop any more,” Bill cried, as they hurried to where the stairway should have been.

But it was not there.

A great section of it had been blown to kindling by the force of the explosion. It was at that moment that Jack became aware of an acrid, sharp smell very different from the reek of the lyddite with which the shell had been loaded. It was a few minutes before he realized what it was,—fire!

He looked behind them. A red glare lighted up the corridor, and even as he gazed, a sheet of flame burst from a doorway further down the passage. Below them, there was bustle and shouting in plenty, but apparently they were the only guests quartered in that part of the hotel.

Jack looked grave. The position they occupied was a very dangerous one. The gap in the stairway was wide and they were trapped with 189 that chasm in front and the flames behind them.

“What are we going to do?” gasped Bill, turning pale.

“I don’t know; we are in a bad fix, Bill,” confessed Jack. “Perhaps,—hello!” he broke off, as the tiny figure of a pretty little girl emerged from a room which adjoined the one they had just vacated.

The tot held in her arms a doll and her eyes were wide with dismay.

“Oh, man, what has happened?” she gasped.

“Something very terrible, little girl,” answered Jack, “but are you alone?”

“Oh, no, my mamma’s in the room. She’s sick, I think.”

“Great Scott,” groaned Jack, “this is serious. It was bad enough before, but now——” He looked at Bill desperately.

“We’ve got to get that woman out of there,” said Bill.

“Yes, but how?” cried Jack desperately. “There’s no way of bridging that gap.”

190 “I’ve got a plan that might work,” said Bill.

“Are you going to save us?” asked the tot in a trembling voice.

“Yes, dear. Don’t be frightened. Stay here while we bring mamma to you.”

“Oh, I’m scared,” wailed the child, but she obediently sat down on a chair to await the boys’ return.

Inside the room they found a handsome, middle-aged woman lying half dressed on the floor, in a faint. Apparently, she had risen and begun dressing hastily when the first shock of the bomb came, but the effort had been too much for her, and she had collapsed. The boys picked her up as gently as possible and tried to revive her, but their efforts met with no success.

Outside, the glare and roar of the flames were increasing. There was no time to be lost.

“There’s only one thing to do,” said Bill seriously.

“And that is what? I’m stupid,” confessed Jack.

191 “We must make a rope of bed clothes and lower her and the child down.”

“Good. I believe we can get out of this.”

They hastily tore the clothes of the two beds in the room and made a long rope of them. When this had been done, they took a turn of their “rope” round the marble pillar at the head of the wrecked staircase. But then came a fresh difficulty. There was no one on the floor below, though they shouted to attract attention. Obviously someone would have to be there to catch the woman and untie her when she was lowered.

“You go,” said Jack. “I guess I’m strong enough to lower you.”

“And leave you here in danger of the flames?” protested Bill, for it was getting uncomfortably hot now, and the smoke was blinding.

“I’ll be all right, if we hurry,” said Jack. “Go ahead, Bill, there’s not a minute to be lost.”

“I know, but——”

“Never mind any ‘buts’—it’s a matter of life and death.”

192 So Bill reluctantly looped the “rope” under his arms and then Jack lowered the young engineer to the next floor. This done, Jack had a hard task in front of him. He had to fasten the life-line round the woman and lift her to the edge of the gulf.

This he accomplished by knotting the rope to the marble pillar, tying it securely at just such a length as would allow its unconscious burden to be suspended over the gap in the stairway. This was accomplished. She was lowered, and in a short time the woman was received by Bill, who released her from the line with all speed. Then came the little girl’s turn. She was terrified at the idea, but at last Jack, with the loss of much valuable time, succeeded in persuading her to make the attempt.

But the delay had made his position terribly dangerous. The fire was so intensely hot now that its breath scorched him. The smoke was so dense, too, that breathing was difficult.

“I’ll have a close shave of it,” thought Jack, 193 as he glanced behind him and prepared to lower the little girl.

As before, the feat was successfully accomplished, and then came Jack’s turn. As he slid nimbly down the rope that had done them such good service, the flames actually singed his garments. He was none too soon in reaching the lower floor, for he had hardly landed when the fire reached the pillar to which the line was secured and burned through its fabric.

“Well, ‘a miss is as good as a mile,’” said Jack, “but that’s about as close as I want to come to being roasted alive.”

The corridor was deserted, but a few lights burned dimly. No damage appeared to have been done there, and it was clear that the bomb had wrought havoc only on the top floor, which was the one occupied by the boys and those they had rescued.

“I wonder if the elevator is running?” asked Bill.

The lift was at the upper end of the passage and they carried the woman to it, but there was no response to their rings. Outside they could hear fire apparatus clanging wildly up and the confused roaring murmur of an immense crowd.

In the distance, the guns of the forts boomed, filling the air with their sonorous thunder as they fired at the daring night raider of the 195 enemy. With this sound was mingled the sharper crackle of light artillery and specially built “sky guns.” But as they learned afterward, the perpetrator of destruction on the sleeping city escaped scot-free, to make subsequent attacks.

The elevator apparently not running, they had to face the task of carrying the unconscious woman down to the lobby and securing medical aid. Luckily for their tired muscles, Antwerp hotels are not like our skyscrapers, and it was not long before they reached the ground.

The scene was a wild one. Hysterical women and white-faced, frightened men, in every stage of dress or undress, were huddled in the centre of the place while the hotel clerks and servants were doing their best to pacify them. In the confusion, the boys attracted hardly any attention, and they laid the woman down on a lounge while they summoned a doctor, of whom several were already busy attending to women who had swooned or become hysterical.

The fear of the crowd was that another bomb 196 might follow the first. Already word had spread that a hospital had been struck and a dwelling house wrecked, two women and a man being killed outright in their sleep in the latter.

“What an outrage!” exclaimed Bill, looking about him at the wild scene while a doctor administered restoratives to the woman they had saved. “To attack women and children and harmless citizens from the sky.”

“I hope they get that old wind bag and blow it to bits,” wished Jack, with not less warmth.

“Well, this is our first taste of war, Jack, and I can’t say I like it.”

“Nor I. It would do some of those jingoes in our own country, who were yelling for war with Mexico, a lot of good to see this,” returned the young wireless man.

“Let’s go outside and see what’s going on,” suggested Bill. “I guess our charge is all right, now she’s beginning to recover.”

If the scene in the hotel had been wild, like a nightmare more than a reality, that outside was 197 pandemonium itself. Imagine a crowd of wild-eyed men and women, few of them wholly dressed, surging behind lines of policemen and the entire street lighted by the ghastly glare of flames upon which the engines were playing furious streams.

“If that bomb-thrower sailed over here now he could wipe out half of Antwerp, I should think,” said Jack, as they elbowed their way through the throng. Oddly enough, although the lads had only been able to throw on a few garments hastily, they did not, till that moment, recollect that their new outfits had been destroyed. It was Bill who called attention to this.

“We ought to make the fortunes of a tailor,” he commented. “We’ll have to get a lot of new stuff to-morrow,—or rather to-day, for it’s after three o’clock.”

“If this keeps up we’ll be reduced to Adam and Eve garments before we get through,” laughed Jack.

Far in the distance, on the outskirts of the city 198 and on the chain of forts, the white fingers of the searchlights were sweeping the sky questioningly, looking for the sky-destroyer to deal out death to him in his turn. The guns boomed and cracked incessantly, sending a rain of missiles upward.

But flying high, and favored by a misty sky, the Zeppelin escaped without injury, leaving a panic-stricken city in its wake. There was no more sleep for any one in Antwerp that night. Vigilance against spies increased ten-fold, and it was bruited about that the real object of the aviators had been to blow up the royal palace, and by destroying the king and queen to terrify the Belgians into submission.

Naturally, sleep was out of the question for the boys. They spent the rest of the night wandering about the city and visiting the ruins of the house that had been struck just before the hotel. Its entire front was torn out by the force of the explosion, and just as they arrived, three bodies had been found in the ruins.

199 The sight of the shrouded, still forms brought home to them with still greater force the horror of it all.

“Tell you what, Bill,” said Jack, as they returned to the hotel to breakfast, and found that the fire had been extinguished and the panic quieted down, “war is a pretty thing on paper, and uniforms, and bands, and fluttering flags, and all that to make a fellow feel martial and war-like, but it’s little realities like these that make you feel the world would be a heap better off without soldiers or sailors whose places could be taken by a few wise diplomats in black tail coats. It wouldn’t be so pretty but it would be a lot more like horse sense.”

“Gracious, you’re developing into a regular orator,” laughed Bill.

“Well, the sight of these poor dead folks and all this useless wreckage got under my skin,” said Jack, flushing a little, for he was not a boy much given to “chin music,” as Bill called oratorical flights.

200 During the morning they secured new clothes for the second time since landing in the city, and then paid their appointed call on M. La Farge.

“I have good news for you, boys,” he said as they came into his office. “Your man was last heard from at Louvain. I suspect he is rather given to adventure, for I understand that he has been quite active in aiding our people. It’s strange that his people have not heard from him, though.”

“Perhaps they have by this time,” said Jack; “but if he has been actively siding with the Belgians, isn’t his neutrality in grave danger, with all its serious consequences?”

M. La Farge nodded thoughtfully.

“I have heard much of your wealthy young Americans,” he said, “and while their hearts are warm and it is good of this young man to be doing what he can, my advice to you is to get him to return home as soon as possible—the Germans shoot first and listen to explanations afterward, as they say in your country.”

It was in the early days of the war when the gallant defenders of Liege were still undauntedly holding back the Teuton thousands with their great “caterpillar” siege guns that were destined, ere long, to hammer down the stubborn defense of Belgium’s neutrality. Trains were running and business, although seriously hampered, was still being carried on, though the foe was at the gate and the capital had been removed from Brussels to Antwerp.

Armed with passes signed by M. La Farge, to which their photographs were attached for purposes of identification, the boys started for Liege the next day. It was likely to prove an arduous and not unhazardous task that they had embarked upon. In the first place “spy fever” 202 was at its height. Anyone not in uniform was liable to be held up and questioned, and if satisfactory explanations were not forthcoming, they were liable to very unpleasant consequences.

The word of any frightened peasant choosing to “denounce” anybody had led to riots and affrays in which men and women, suspected of espionage, had been rescued by troopers after being half beaten to death.

Above all, the boys were warned not to carry weapons of any kind, an injunction which they obeyed as they did all the rest of M. La Farge’s admonitions. The train journey proved exasperating. Sometimes it would be halted for hours on a side track while trains, loaded with young-looking soldiers in a strange medley of gay Belgian uniforms, went by, the men cheering and singing. Again, much time was wasted by careful reconnaissances, for there was fear that bridges might have been dynamited or the right of way mined by the spies who were rife throughout the country.

203 A whole day passed thus, with the train creeping like a snail and continually stopping and starting. The roads at the side of the track were alive with peasants flocking to different centres from their lonely houses in the country. Some had their family possessions piled high in small carts drawn by dogs. Others carried what they had been able hastily to collect. It was another sad picture of war and the desolation it had brought on an inoffensive, industrious little country.

Several aeroplanes soared above the train, reconnoitering the country. At first the boys were nervous lest there might be a repetition of the bomb-dropping at Antwerp, but they were assured by the official on the train, who had examined their passes, that the aircraft were all friendly French and Belgian aeroplanes, after which they watched them with less uncomfortable feelings. As Bill put it:

“If we were at war and shouldering rifles for the dear old U. S. A., we’d take the chances of 204 war with the rest of them, but being a neutral, there’s no sense in throwing away our bright young lives,” a sentiment to which Jack agreed heartily.

It was dark when the train rolled into Louvain. After innumerable challenges by armed sentries, they at last reached the hotel of the place where many of the soldiers were quartered. If Antwerp had seemed like an armed fortress, signs of military activity were much more marked in the old cathedral town.

Lights were not allowed after eight o’clock. Citizens were kept off the streets at night after certain hours. Artillery rumbled through the city all night, going to the front, the boys were told.

Disquieting rumors of the fall of Liege, and the advance of the Germans, had already reached the town, and on the outskirts, barbed wire defenses were erected and trenches dug hastily. Residents were warned, in the event of the Germans entering the city, to behave 205 themselves strictly as non-combatants, the magnificent cathedral was fitted up as a hospital in case of emergencies. The thrill of warfare was in the air.

It was early the next morning that Jack aroused Bill from his sleep.

“Hark, Bill!” he exclaimed, holding up one hand.

From far off came the boom of cannon. The ground seemed to tremble under the thunder-like reverberations. Down in the street a squadron of cavalry raced through the town. Then came the rumbling of guns being rushed to the front.

“It’s a big battle,” declared Jack; “and what’s more the sounds have been growing louder. It must be a retreat.”

Bill looked grave.

“In that case we are likely to be in the thick of it.”

“I’m afraid so, and it may be mighty difficult to get away. We’ll have to find Tom Jukes as 206 soon as we can, and then get back to the coast.”

An aeroplane buzzed by overhead, its powerful engines whirring, buzzing thunderously. By daylight the town was almost empty of soldiers; they had all, except a few detachments, been called to the front during the night.

The landlord of the hotel was in a great state of perturbation.

“Ah, those terrible Germans!” he exclaimed, “they will wreck our beautiful town and put us to death. I know them. Oh, what unhappy times.”

“Perhaps they may be beaten back,” encouraged Jack.

“Oh, no! No such good fortune,” said the landlord, wringing his hands miserably. Just after dawn, a mud-spattered courier arrived, and declared Liege had fallen, “the Germans are coming.”

Everywhere that was the cry as, after a hasty breakfast in the disordered hotel, the boys hurried out.

The sound of firing was now much closer. Frightened faces were peering from behind shuttered windows. All traffic appeared to have stopped, and the only life beyond the few persons abroad, whose curiosity was stronger than their fear of the big German guns, was when an occasional body of troops would rush through the streets.

The beautiful Hotel de Ville and the fine old cathedral, so soon destined to be damaged by fire and bullets, attracted the attention of the boys and gained a hearty expression of admiration from them both. All at once there was a whirr and the snort of a horn, and an armored war-automobile, carrying a machine gun, and painted a business-like gray, dashed around a 208 corner and sped on. Another car came close behind it.

The second machine carried an American and a Red Cross flag. It was coming fast and contained two occupants. Both were youths, and one carried a camera over his shoulder by a broad strap. But the other attracted Jack’s notice, for in him he recognized instantly the lad they were in search of, Tom Jukes, the millionaire’s son.

“Hey, Tom Jukes!” he hailed.

The car slowed up and the young driver turned questioningly in his seat.

“Well, by all that’s wonderful, it’s Jack Ready and Bill Raynor!” he exclaimed, as the two lads came up to the car. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“We’ve been sent to ask you that same question,” responded Jack, who, it will be recalled, became well acquainted with Tom Jukes when the young wireless man was in the hospital in New York following his battle with the 209 desperate tobacco smugglers he was instrumental in sending to prison.

“What do you mean?” asked Tom with wide-open eyes.

“Why, your father hadn’t heard from you and——”

“Hadn’t heard from me! Why, I’ve written several letters,” declared Tom. “I’d have cabled, but they’ve stopped all that for the present, at least. I declare, that’s too bad. And so the governor sent you on a searching expedition, eh?”

“Well, it was to be a combination of that and a vacation,” laughed Jack, and he told something of their adventures on board the “Gold Ship.”

“My word, you fellows are always having adventures,” said Tom, with a smile on his good-looking face. “The fact is, I guess reading of your exploits made me stay over here when this row started to see if I couldn’t have some of my own. I’m staying with Belgian friends, about 210 half a mile from here, and so far I haven’t done much but get ready to help in Red Cross work and so on. But now I guess it’s up to me to get back to the U. S. A.”

“If we can,” said Jack. “I don’t know where the ship we came over on, the St. Mark, has been sent to. London and Paris are overrun with American refugees. When we were there, hundreds of them were unable to get passage, or even change their money.”

“Oh, the whole world seems to have been shuffled in this thing,” frowned Tom, “but let me introduce my friend, Philander Pottle. He’s a photographer for a New York newspaper.”

The boys shook hands with Pottle, a dark young fellow who talked as explosively as a machine gun.

“Glad to meet you—fine fight—be here soon—great pictures—snap! bang!—action—that’s the stuff!”

“We’re going out toward the front, that is, if 211 we can get by,” declared Tom; “want to come along?”

The boys looked rather dubious.

“I don’t know what your father——” began Jack doubtfully.

Tom interrupted him impulsively.

“Oh, there’s no danger so long as we don’t get in any of the scrimmages ourselves,” he declared, “and then the American flag and the Red Cross emblem will keep us out of trouble.”

Both boys were anxious to go, so that it did not take much more persuasion to make them get in.

“Now then off we go—bang! biff!—big guns!”

Outside the city lay an open country. Far off they could see a great cloud-like mass of smoke which, no doubt, marked the place where the fight was taking place.

“We’ll make a detour to the north,” declared Tom. “There’s rising ground there and we can look down without danger of getting hit.”

“Not want to get hit—cannon ball—gee 212 whizz, off goes your head—much better keep it on,” said Pottle, in his firecracker way.

“He talks as fast as a photographic shutter moves,” chuckled Bill to Jack in a low voice and the other could not but agree. As they rode on, they passed groups of soldiers and artillery. Now and then a lumbering wagon, bringing back wounded men lying on piles of straw, jolted by, bearing mute testimony of the havoc going on at the front.

The boys began to feel sick and queer and even Tom sobered down at these sights. They were stopped several times by small skirmishing bands and made to show their papers, for a few days before German spies had been captured in a car flying an American flag. The car sped up a hill and then started swiftly down on the other side of the acclivity.

At the foot of the hill, a long and steep one, was a wooden bridge. Tom was driving fast, when suddenly there was a sharp, snapping sound and the car leaped forward. Tom’s foot 213 was on the brake in a jiffy, but there was no diminution in the speed of the machine. Instead, it appeared to gain momentum every moment.

“Bother it all,” muttered Tom; “brakes bust. I can’t slow down till we get to the bottom of the hill.”

“I hope we don’t meet anything,” cried Jack.

“If we do grand bust—smash—crash—no chance—wow!” exploded the photographer.

But there was nothing in sight, and beyond the bridge was another up grade where Tom hoped to gain control of the runaway machine. But within a few hundred feet of the bridge some soldiers suddenly appeared, running from the bridge as if they were in haste to leave the vicinity.

As the car came in sight they waved it frantically back. One even leveled a rifle.

“Can’t stop,” shouted Tom Jukes, “brakes bust.”

They flashed by the men who looked mere blurs at the pace the car was now going.

214 Bang! came a shot behind them, but the bullet whistled by, making them involuntarily crouch low in the madly racing car. Behind them came shouts and yells. They could catch something about Germans.

“They think we’re German spies,” gasped Bill, as the car thundered across the bridge.

Hardly had it flashed across than there came a terrific explosion and looking back they saw the whole bridge blown skyward. Their lives had been saved by a miracle.

“Those soldiers must have mined that bridge and set the fuse just before we appeared,” declared Jack, looking rather white and dismayed.

“We weren’t a second too soon. If we’d been going slower we’d have been wiped off the map,” added Bill soberly.

“I’m going to keep running at this speed till we’re out of this neighborhood,” cried Tom Jukes. “It’s not healthy.”

But clearly fate was against their seeing anything of the battle that morning. They were still going fast, traveling through a wooded country that alternated with open stretches, where they could catch a glimpse of the far-off fight, when there came a sudden ominous sound:

Bang!

“There’s a shot,” cried Bill, looking round with alarm on his face.

“That was no shot,” returned Tom with a rueful grin, “it was one of the tires blowing out.”

“Pop—bang—air all out—pump her up—hard work—too bad,” exploded Pottle.

“Fritz, I’ll be jiggered if you don’t talk like a tire going on the fritz yourself,” laughed Tom, as he succeeded in slowing the car down on a 216 gentle grade by reversing the engine and then stopping at the bottom.

“Fritz—German name—don’t use it in Belgium—think you’re a spy—then you’ll be on the fritz,” sputtered Pottle.

The car was brought to a standstill opposite a neat white farmhouse approached by an avenue of slender dark poplars. A big dog bayed as the car stopped, but there was no other sign of life about the place except some chickens pecking and scratching in the dooryard. In the background were yellow stacks, for the harvest had just been gathered. It made a pretty, contented scene in contrast with the turbulent experiences through which the boys had passed only recently.

But they did not spend much time comparing the rural peace with the unrest of the cities in the war area. There was work for them all to do. First the brake was mended by replacing a broken bolt that had caused the trouble that almost ended tragically for them. Then came 217 the fitting of a new “shoe” and tube, at which they all helped by turns.

The work took some time, and at its completion they were all dusty, hot, and very thirsty.

“I’d give a lot for a good drink of cold water or milk right now,” puffed Tom, resting from his exertions with the tire pump. “What do you say if we go up to that farmhouse and see if we can buy something to drink?”

“Oh, for an ice cream soda,” sighed Bill.

“You might as well wish for lemonade in the Sahara desert,” scoffed Tom. “They wouldn’t know an ice cream soda here if they met it.”

Laughing and chatting, they approached the house, walking up the avenue. But as they neared it, their cheerfulness appeared to receive a check. No indication of life but those mentioned appeared about the place. It was silent and shuttered. The stable seemed to be empty. No farm wagons stood about.

Repeated knockings at the door failed to produce anyone.

218 “There’s a well yonder,” said Tom Jukes. “What do you say if we help ourselves?”

“We’ll have to, I guess,” agreed Jack. “Everyone about the place must have been scared away by the battle.”

“Or more probably the men were called to arms and the women have gone to some place of safety,” was Bill’s opinion.

A great earthenware vessel stood by the well brink and they refreshed themselves from this with long draughts of cold, clear water.

“That’s better,” declared Tom, as he set down the pitcher after a second application from it. “Now let’s be getting on, for we’ve got to find another road back.”

“Wait a minute—great chance—deserted farm—men at war—women flee in haste leaving faithful dog!” exclaimed Pottle, unslinging his camera.

“Well, hurry up and get through with your old picture box,” conceded Tom, “and, by the way, you might let that dog loose. Poor 219 creature, he’ll surely starve to death tied up like that.”

Although the dog was a ferocious-looking animal, he seemed to know that the boys meant to give him his liberty, for he allowed them to take off his chain without any opposition and went to a small stream that flowed behind the house to slake his thirst.

This had hardly been done, and Pottle had taken a few snaps, when down the road came a furious galloping and a squadron of Belgian cavalry appeared, spurring for their lives, while behind came hoarse shouts and shots.

“Great Scott! We’re in for it now!” exclaimed Tom in a dismayed voice; “a flanking party must have attacked those fellows and driven them back.”

The squadron, a small one, and probably a scouting party, galloped past the house without even noticing the boys and the auto standing in the road. It was plain they were hard pressed. They had hardly gone when another body of 220 horsemen appeared. They wore gray uniforms. Their metal helmets were covered with canvas with the number of their troop stencilled on it in large figures. Each man carried a lance with a gleaming point. Like those they pursued they swept by without paying attention to anything but the pursuit.

“Uhlans!” exclaimed Tom. “I hope we haven’t blundered into the thick of this thing.”

They all stopped to listen. The noise of the pursuit had died out, but now more hoof beats could be heard approaching rapidly.

In another moment a smaller body of men swept up to the farmhouse, drawing rein at the sight of the stalled car. By their uniforms and the fluttering ensign held up by a big trooper, the boys guessed them to be officers. They paused for a moment and then, after a few words, turned and came galloping up the poplar-lined approach.

The boys exchanged blank looks.

“Keep cool,” urged Tom, “there isn’t anything they can do to hurt us.”

“I don’t know, I’ve heard some queer tales of the Germans,” declared Jack, rather apprehensively, “for one thing they’ve no great love for Americans.”

“But they wouldn’t dare to injure us,” declared Bill.

222 The horsemen, of whom there were six, and they saw that two were slightly wounded, came galloping up and drew rein. The leader of the party was a fierce, hawk-nosed old man with an immense drooping mustache. The others were young officers, rather foppish-looking. Two of them wore monocles.

But it was the figure of the man who brought up the rear of the party that excited Jack’s attention to the exclusion of the others.

“Radwig!” he gasped to Bill as he recognized the figure of the former Herr Professor of the German War college, in spite of his wearing a uniform.

“Wow! There’ll be trouble sure now,” muttered Bill. “See, he’s looking at us.”

“Yes, he recognizes us and he doesn’t look over amiable.”

Radwig spurred his horse to the side of the hawk-nosed old colonel and spoke rapidly. The old man bent keen eyes on the party of boys.

“Herr Radwig informs me that two of your 223 party are spies,” he said in a chilling voice; “is that the truth?”

“Of course not,” declared Jack, paling a trifle. “We are all Americans.”

“Unfortunately, a great many persons, including English spies, are protecting themselves under that banner nowadays,” was the rejoinder. “I’ll trouble you to show your papers.”

“Why, Mr. Radwig knows me and my friend here,” burst out Jack.

“I know nothing but what I suspect,” snarled Radwig, his eyes gleaming viciously. “Colonel, will you allow me to search these boys?”

The other nodded assent.

“I would rather be searched by somebody else,” protested Jack, guessing what sort of treatment they would get from the man who hated him.

“Herr Radwig will search you,” was the rejoinder, and then, in German, he gave orders to a non-commissioned officer,—a sergeant,—to get a meal ready within the house. Radwig 224 compelled the indignant boys to turn out everything in their pockets and Pottle’s camera was ordered destroyed forthwith.

Radwig’s search was rapid and thorough. When it was concluded, he turned to the colonel.

“There is nothing incriminating on any of them, but on this one here,” he declared.

He pointed at Jack as he spoke.

“And he——?”

“Has two passes on the Belgian railroads in his pocket.”

This was true, for Jack had not given up both passes the last time they had to show them.

“That seems to prove that he has some position of trust with the Belgian government,” declared Radwig, “and as such is properly a prisoner of war.”

Jack looked his dismay; but the colonel gave a sharp order. Two soldiers laid hold of the boy. He started to shake them off indignantly while his friends looked on aghast.

“I can explain all this,” he cried; “this man 225 Radwig had trouble with me. He’s trying to get even. He——”

“Take him away,” came the cold order in unmoved tones. “You are responsible for him,” added the colonel to Jack’s two captors. “See that he is carefully guarded till the court martial.”

“The court martial!” cried Jack. “Why, I—I’m an American citizen and——”

“There is no more to be said,” and Jack, with an armed guard pressing a revolver to either side, was marched off without a chance to say more. As he went on, he could hear his friends protesting indignantly and then, they too, were taken in charge by the soldiers and escorted to the automobile. Then came a sharp order to them to drive back to Louvain on pain of death. There was nothing for them to do but to obey. The iron discipline of the German officers allowed no argument. And so, leaving Jack to his fate, they were compelled to drive off with heavy hearts.

226 “Don’t worry, we’ll get the American consul and get him out all right,” said Tom, as cheerfully as he could.

But Bill, with the thought of a court martial in his mind, sat in a miserable state all the way back to the town which they reached only after making a long detour, necessitated by the blown-up bridge.

His chum in the hands of the Germans, and subject to court martial, Bill had good cause to feel worried and oppressed as to the outcome when he realized the influence that Radwig, Jack’s enemy, appeared to possess. To what terrible lengths might not his desire for vengeance lead him?

Poor Jack, with feelings that may be imagined, was roughly thrust into a smoke house and the door slammed. Outside the sentries paced up and down ceaselessly, showing him that to think of escaping would be useless. There he must stay at the mercy of Radwig till his fate was decided.

No wonder, as he sank on a rough stool, he felt for a moment sick and apprehensive. The glitter in Radwig’s eyes when he saw who it was he had made prisoner had warned Jack to expect severe treatment. The hours dragged by and no one came near him. It was pitch dark in the smoke house, which, of course, had no openings and hardly any ventilation.

The clank of the sentries’ sabres, and their 228 steady, monotonous tread, were the only sounds that disturbed the stillness except for an occasional, far-off rumble of cannonading. Evidently the main tide of the battle had rolled back from the scene of the morning’s engagement. If it had not been for the presence of the sentries, which showed that he was not forgotten, Jack would have been inclined to think that his captors had ridden on and left him.

But the steady tramp-tramp outside precluded all possibility of this. At last the door was flung open, and the two men guarding him entered the dark smoke house. Jack saw then that it was late twilight, but a cloudy sunset, threatening a coming storm, made it appear later.

“Come,” ordered one of the impassive, gray-uniformed Germans, who seemingly possessed a knowledge of a little English.

There was no resource but to obey. Jack, with a beating heart, fell in between his two guardians.

“You have heard yourself accused of being a spy,” began the Colonel harshly.—Page 229

229 “I’ve got to be cool and keep my head,” he told himself as he was marched toward the house. “Any false step now might be fatal.”

Within the farmhouse, kitchen lights had been kindled. Two yellow flaring lamps showed the group of officers about the table with their swords laid among the remains of a meal. Wine spilled on the cloth and empty glasses showed that the farmhouse cellar had been raided for their entertainment.

At the head of the table sat the hawk-nosed colonel. Next him was Radwig. One of the officers, a major, was tilted back in his chair snoring noisily. Jack’s heart sank. He saw no signs of a fair trial.

“You have heard yourself accused of being a spy,” began the colonel harshly. “What have you to say to the charge?”

“Simply that it’s ridiculous. If you will give me time my friends will be back here with ample proof that I am an American citizen, a wireless operator and——”

230 “Ah, ha!” exclaimed the colonel, placing one finger to the side of his hawk-like beak and looking cunning. “So that is it. A wireless operator with Belgian passes in his possession. It looks bad.”

Radwig bent over and whispered something in the colonel’s ear.

“Herr Radwig tells me that you are a hater of Germans. That you had him placed in custody in England and that he only escaped to join our army after surmounting great difficulties. What have you to say to that?”

“As to being a hater of Germans, no American is that,” said Jack. “We are all neutral in this struggle. So far as Herr Radwig being imprisoned in England, he was already in irons on the ship before she docked.”

“Is that true?” demanded the colonel of Radwig, who smiled and waved his hand with a gesture that signified “absurd.”

“You see Herr Radwig denies that you tell the truth,” remarked the colonel.

231 “Surely my word is as good as his,” protested Jack, trying to keep cool, although he saw that things looked black indeed for him before such a prejudiced tribunal.

“Herr Radwig is a German we all know and honor,” retorted the colonel. “Who you are we do not know. Therefore, between you, we must believe him.”

“You don’t mean that you believe I am a spy?” blurted out Jack.

“The evidence shows it,” rejoined the colonel coldly. “You are aware of the rules of war?”

The whole room suddenly swam before Jack’s eyes. A deadly chill passed through him. For an instant he could not assure himself that it was not a hideous dream from which he must soon awaken. But the next instant, the reality, the horrible fact that he was about to be sentenced to death as a spy, rushed back upon him. He tried to speak but his dry lips refused to deliver a word.

The colonel and Radwig whispered, and then 232 the former announced in his harsh grating voice:

“It will be at reveille to-morrow. Remove the prisoner.”

“But you don’t understand,” he choked out, “surely you don’t mean to execute me, an American citizen, without a chance to explain. I——”

“I will assume full responsibility,” was the cold reply.

Jack struggled with his captors, but a cruel blow in the small of the back with the butt of a rifle so dizzied him, that by the time he recovered his senses, he was back in the dark, foul-smelling smoke house once more.

Then followed the blackest hours of Jack’s life. Outside the sentries kept up their eternal pacing. In the distance a dog barked, and there was still scattered firing. For a long time the unfortunate young wireless man sat huddled on the floor of his prison in a sort of torpor.

All at once he recollected that one of his guards spoke English. Perhaps he could get the loan of pen or pencil and paper to write some last words. But when hammering at the door for some moments brought a response, his request was gruffly refused. The sentry resumed his measured pacing.

One—two! One—two! Hour after hour the sound beat into Jack’s brain till he thought his head would burst.

234 Then came another sound.

The sound of digging! The blows of a mattock!

A cold perspiration broke out on Jack’s forehead as he realized the import of this. They were digging his grave, and by a refinement of cruelty, within earshot of his prison place. Whether by accident or design, poor Jack was being forced to hearken to the most grisly of the preparations for the next morning’s reveille.

So the hours crept by leaden-footed. Sleep was out of the question as much as was possibility of escape. The sound of the digging, which Jack had stopped his ears to keep out, had ceased.

Then came a sudden stir outside. The sound of hurrying feet and commands barked in sharp, quick voices. Jack’s heart gave a bound.

Could it be a detachment of Belgians summoned by Tom and Bill coming to wipe out the small force occupying the farm?

235 He flung himself against the door of the smoke house, listening intently. There was a tiny crack at one of the posts and through this he could command a limited view of the moonlit farmyard. Then came an odd sound. Like the dry whirring of insects in the fall. It grew in volume. The hurrying and the shouts increased, too. Shots were heard, scattering one after the other and a yell that sounded like a shout of warning.

Then the world rocked and spurted flame. Screams and groans filled the air.

Again there came an explosion that shattered the night and sickened the senses. Jack, half stunned, fell to the floor of the smoke house as part of its roof was torn off.

Then came silence, broken an instant afterward by groans and moans and swift, alarmed orders. There was a rat-a-plan of hoofs. The queer whirring sound died out. Only the moans still continued. Dizzy and sick, Jack got to his feet.

236 As yet he could not quite realize what had happened. Suddenly followed realization.

A night raiding aircraft had spied the shifting lights of the encampment and, by the moonlight, caught the gleam of stacked arms, and had struck.

The sound of the sentries’ ceaseless pacing had stopped. Jack shouted and pounded on the door of the partially wrecked smoke house, but there was no answer but the moans and cries that were now getting fainter and less frequent. The sides of the smoke house were of rough logs and without much difficulty Jack clambered to the shattered roof.

He raised himself and clambering over, gave a hasty glance about him. It was a terrible scene of wreckage that he surveyed. In the earth two immense holes, big enough to bury two horses, had been torn, and close by lay two men. Over toward the house was a third figure stretched out. Three horses, one of which died as Jack was looking over the carnage, lay not far off.

237 There was nobody else in sight.

Jack clambered over the edge of the gap the shell had torn in the roof and dropped lightly to the ground.

“Wasser!” moaned one of the wounded men, whom Jack recognized as one of his guards. The boy sped to the well and hastened back with the big earthen pitcher from which they had refreshed themselves earlier that day.

But he was too late. Even as the boy held the cooling draught to the sentry’s lips, the man died. The other was already dead when the boy dropped to the ground, his body frightfully shattered by the aerial bomb.

There was still the third man lying by the house and Jack, thinking he might be able to minister to him, hurried over. But here, too, the bomb had struck fatally.

A shaft of moonlight fell through the poplars and illumined the man’s face. It was Radwig, struck down in death even as he had planned a cruel revenge for another. Jack covered the 238 dead professor’s face with the man’s huge blue cloak and then stood silent for a moment. The rapidity with which it had all happened almost stunned him.

Fifteen minutes before he had been a prisoner with the hideous sounds of spade and mattock in his ears. Now he was, by nothing short of a miracle, free again. He raised his face to the sky and his lips moved silently. Then, with a last look about the place, he prepared to leave, fervently hoping that before another day had passed he would be with his friends once more in Louvain.

All at once he heard a loud whinny. One of the dead troopers’ horses had been left behind in the mad flight from the farmhouse. It was saddled and bridled, although the girth had been loosened. Jack untied it, tightened the girths, and mounted. He did not know much about riding, but somehow he managed to stick to the animal’s back as he directed it down the road.

Every now and then he drew rein and listened. 239 He had no desire to encounter prowling bands of Uhlans or to run into the small force that had evacuated the farmhouse, no doubt believing him to be dead. But dawn broke while he was still traveling, not at all certain that he was going in the right direction.

Jack decided to abandon his mount. Taking off its bridle so that it could find forage along the roadside, he patted its neck and said:

“Thanks for the ride, old fellow.”

Then bareheaded, and tired almost to exhaustion by all he had gone through, yet driven on by dire necessity of reaching the Belgian lines, the lad struck off across a wheat field into a path of woodland. On the edge of the field he shrank suddenly back into the tall wheat. There lay a man’s coat, a stone jug and a basket. No doubt the man was close at hand. But although he crouched there for a long time, nobody came, nor was there any sound of human life. Birds twittered and once a rabbit cocked an inquisitive eye at the lad as he lay crouched in the wheat.

240 Cautiously Jack raised himself and parting the stalks, peered out. He saw something he had not noticed before. The man, who doubtless owned the belongings which had alarmed Jack, lay stretched out at the foot of a tree. He was on his face sleeping.

But was he sleeping?

An ugly, dark stain discolored the ground around him. His shirt was dyed crimson. Jack saw, with a shudder, that he had nothing to fear here. The poor peasant was dead. Shot down by wandering Uhlans no doubt, as he was about to gather his harvest.

“Poor fellow, he’ll never need these now,” said Jack, as driven by thirst and hunger he investigated the stone jug and the basket. One held cider, the other the man’s dinner of black bread, onions and coarse bacon.

Too famished to mind the idea of eating the dead man’s dinner, Jack stuffed his pockets, took a long pull of the cider jug and then plunged into the wood. Here he flung himself down to 241 rest and eat. Then, tired as he was, he forced himself to rise and travel on again.

Faint and far off the distant rumble of cannonading came to his ears, but here in the woods it was as calm and peaceful as if war, death and slaughter were forgotten things. At length he came to a place where the woods thinned out and there was a small clearing. He was about to advance across this when he saw something that caused his heart to give a quick leap and stopped him short in his tracks.

At one side of the clearing was an aeroplane!

It was a big monoplane with gauzy, yellow wings and a body painted the color of the sky on a gray day, no doubt to make it invisible at any considerable height.

Any doubt that it was a war machine was removed by the sight of a small but wicked-looking rapid-fire gun that was mounted on its forward part.

Jack was still looking at it, rooted to the spot as if he had been a figure of stone, when there 242 was a sudden crackle on the floor of the wood behind him.

Then came an order sharp and crisp.

“Arrette!”

Jack was not a French scholar but there was something in the way the command was given that made him stand without moving a muscle. Footsteps came behind him and then he felt rather than saw a man passing from the rear to face him.

He worked round to the front of the boy and then Jack saw that he was a small man with carefully waxed mustache in whose hand was a particularly serviceable-looking revolver, which he held unpleasantly level at Jack’s head.

The man with the revolver gave a sudden cry:

“Mon ami Read-ee!”

“Great Scott, de Garros!” gasped Jack, recognizing the French aviator. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask zee same question of you,” smiled the other. “I leave you on zee sheep and now, voila! I find you in a Belgian wood wizout zee hat, wiz your face scratched by zee bramble and looking—pardon me, please,—like zee tramp.”

“I guess I do,” laughed Jack, in his relief at finding that instead of falling again into the enemy’s hands, he had met an old friend; “but I’m lucky that there’s nobody to say ‘how natural he looks’——”

244 “Pardon, I don’t understand,” said de Garros in a puzzled tone.

Jack plunged into a recital of his adventures, interrupted frequently by a hail of “Sacres,” “Nom d’un noms,” and “Chiens,” from the Frenchman.

“And now it’s up to you to explain how I find you here in the heart of a Belgian wood with a war machine,” said Jack as he concluded.

“Zat is eezee to explain,” said the Frenchman. “After you leave me in New York I get passage on a French liner for Havre. We arrive and I am at once placed in command of zee air forces of Belgium. Since zat time, pardon my conceit, monsieur, I think zat wizout bragging I can say I ’ave cause zee Germans very much trouble. Last night I fly over zee country and where I see Germans I drop a little souvenir,—but what is zee matter, monsieur, you look excited.”

“No, no, go on,” said Jack; “I was just thinking that it’s possible the day of miracles has come back.”

245 De Garros stared at him but went on:

“In zee course of my journey I see a farmhouse where Gerrman cavalry horses and stacked arms show in zee moonlight,” said the Frenchman.

“How did you know they were Germans?” asked Jack.

“Did you not know all zis territory is now overrun by zem? Yesterday they advance. They are now near Louvain. But nevaire fear, someway we drive zem back. But to continue. I drop one, two bomb wiz my compliments and——”

“Saved my life!” exploded Jack.

De Garros looked concerned.

“Once more pardon, my dear Readee, but you are well in zee head? Zee sun——?”

“No, no, don’t you see?” cried Jack; “those were your bombs that resulted in my being saved from a spy’s death.”

“Sacre! Ees zat possible? And yet it must ’ave been so! Embrace me, my dear Readee, 246 nuzzing I ’ave done ’ave give me so much plaisair as zees.”

Jack had to submit to being hugged by the enthusiastic little aviator to whom, as may be expected, he felt the deepest gratitude.

“And now what are zee plan?” asked de Garros, when his enthusiasm had subsided.

“I want to join my friends in Louvain,” said Jack.

“Nom d’un chien! You are trying to walk zere through zees part of zee country!”

“Why, yes. I——”

“Mon ami, you might as well commit zee suicide. It is swarm wiz German. I hide in zees wood till night when I can travel wizout having zee bullet swarm like zee bee round what you call zee bonnet.”

“Then what am I going to do?” he demanded. “I can’t stay here and I’ve had one experience with the Germans, and I assure you it was quite sufficient to last me for a lifetime.”

“I ’ave zee plan,” said de Garros.

247 “Yes.”

“My aeroplane hold three people.”

“Go on.”

“You shall fly wiz me.”

“To Louvain?”

“If that is possible. If not, to some place where you can communicate wiz your friend. ’Ow you like zat?”

Jack hesitated a moment. He was not a timid lad, nor did he fear ordinary danger. Yet flying above the German troops, between the place where they were talking and Louvain, was a risky business to say the least of it.

Yet there was no alternative that he could perceive. The mere idea of getting captured by Uhlans again gave him goose flesh. As if he read his thoughts de Garros said:

“You run no more of zee reesk in zee flight than you do on zee ground. Not so much. At night I fly high and I promise you I will not make any attacks.”

“You’re on,” said Jack, extending his hand.

“Take zees. You need zem. We fly fast. Très vite.”

De Garros was speaking as he handed Jack a pair of goggles. It was dusk and they, having finished an excellent meal from the aviator’s provision pannier, were about to start on their flight across the war-smitten country.

Already the flying man, aided to the best of Jack’s ability, had gone over the aircraft, testing every part of it. Everything was in perfect order, from the big Gnome eight-cylindered, self-contained motor, mounted with the big propeller forward, to the last bolt on the dragonfly tail.

Just before full darkness fell, which might have involved them in an accident in rising, de Garros gave the word to get on board. They 249 clambered aboard, Jack with a heart that beat and nerves that throbbed rather more than was comfortable.

There are few people who do not feel a trifle “queer” before their first flight above the earth, and in Jack’s case the conditions of danger were multiplied a hundred-fold, for before they had cleared the woods and risen to a safe height they might be the target for German rifles and quick firers. De Garros wore a metal helmet padded inside. Jack had to be content with an old cap that happened to be in the aeroplane, left there by some machinist.

But, as de Garros said, the metal helmet would not be much protection against the projectile of a quick firer, or even a rifle.

The fighting aircraft was fitted with a self-starter, obviating the necessity of swinging the great propeller.

“All ready?” asked the Frenchman of Jack, who sat behind him, tandem wise, in the long, narrow body of the machine.

250 “Ready,” said Jack, in the steadiest voice just then at his command.

“Then up ve go.”

The self-starter purred, and then came the roar and a crackle of the exhausts as the propeller swung swiftly till it was a blur. Blue smoke from the castor-oil lubricant spouted, mingled with flame, into the thickening air of the evening. The wholesome smell of the wood was drowned in the reek of gasoline and oil fumes.

“Gracious, if there are any Germans within a mile, they’ll hear this racket,” thought Jack, with a gulp. “It sounds like a battery of gatling guns.”

De Garros took his foot from the brake lever and the machine darted forward. Jack clutched the sides desperately till his knuckles showed white through the skin. Then he gave a shout of alarm.

The machine had suddenly reared up like a startled horse. The jolting and bumping of the 251 “take-off” stopped. The boy realized with a thrill that they were flying.

At that instant from the trees on one side of the clearing burst several Uhlans.

“Germans!” cried Jack.

“Maledictions!” exclaimed the Frenchman.

For a second or two the Uhlans stood paralyzed as the machine shot upward. They had heard the staccato rattle of the engine from where they lay camped, not far off in the same woods that had sheltered de Garros and Jack. Thinking it betokened a skirmish, they had hastily run toward the noise just in time to see the wasp-like machine whirr its way skyward.

But the machine was not well above the trees when they recovered from their surprise. Rifles were leveled.

“Look out!” cried Jack, “they are going to fire on us.”

“Hold tight now, I show you zee trick,” rejoined the flying man quietly.

The aeroplane was now above the wood which 252 on that side was a mere belt of tall trees. Suddenly the machine ceased its upward flight. It rocketed downward like a stone. Above it bullets whistled harmlessly as the Uhlans fired at the place where it had been and was not.

The ground rushed up to meet them as the machine plummeted downward. Jack’s head swam dizzily.

“We’ll be killed sure!” he thought, but strangely enough, without much emotion, except a dull feeling that the end was at hand. Then just as disaster seemed inevitable, the machine suddenly began to soar again as Jack could have sworn it grazed the tall grass.

Up and up they shot, in a long series of circles, and then de Garros turned and grinned at Jack, showing his white teeth.

“’Ow you like?” he asked.

“I—I guess. I’ll tell you after a while” rejoined Jack, with suspended judgment.

The earth lay far below them now, although it was still light enough to see the fields marked 253 off like the squares on a chess board and the countless fires of the Germans that dotted the landscape almost as far as could be seen. At every one of them were men, who, if any accident befell the machine and it had to descend, would make things very interesting for the air travelers.

Jack could not help thinking of this as the aeroplane flew steadily along, her motor buzzing with an even sound that told all was going well. But he knew they were not out of danger yet.

A hundred things might befall before they arrived safely in Louvain.

And then all at once the danger came.

Ahead of them loomed, in the darkness, for the moon had not yet risen, a bulking dark form.

An exclamation burst from the Frenchman’s lips.

“A Zeppelin. Malediction!”

“Do you think she’ll attack us?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know. I can’t tell yet which way she is coming. Ah!”

A long ray of light, like a radiant scimitar, glowed suddenly from the mighty aircraft, 400 feet long and capable of carrying many men and tons of explosives.

Hither and thither the ray was flung.

“Zey heard our engines. Zey look for us!” exclaimed de Garros.

255 He shot up to a greater height. He was manœuvering to get above the Zeppelin, where her guns would be useless against the aeroplane, which was more mobile and swifter in the air than the Kaiser’s immense sky-ship.

But suddenly the glowing light enveloped them in its full blaze. Dazzlingly it showed them in its rays. It was the most peculiar sensation Jack had ever experienced. It was like being stood up against a wall with a fiery sabre pressed to your breast.

With a quick movement of the wheel, de Garros sent the aeroplane out of range of the revealing light. The next moment came a sharp crackle and something screamed through the air.

“Missed!” exclaimed the aviator with satisfaction.

Again the questioning finger pointed its interrogating tip hither and yon across the night sky. Others from below now joined it in its quest.

The firing from above, and the sight of the searchlight had been rightly guessed by the 256 Germans encamped below. They knew that a hostile aircraft was above them and were helping in the search for it.

A sharp exclamation broke from the Frenchman. He bent and fumbled with some contrivance on the floor of the aeroplane.

There was a sharp click.

“What have you done?” asked Jack.

“I have released zee bomb.”

“The dickens!”

“Watch! Now you see!”

Fascinated, even in the midst of the awful danger they were facing high above the earth in the upper air, Jack leaned over and stared at a battery of searchlights sending out fan-shaped rays on every side.

He guessed this was the objective of de Garros’ bombs. He was right.

As he gazed there was what looked like the sudden opening of a flaming fire below, and the searchlights went out as if a giant had snuffed a monstrous candle.

257 Then came the report, booming upward through the air.

“Aha! Zere are some Germans below zere who will not do zee mischief more!” exclaimed the Frenchman with vicious satisfaction.

But his congratulations to himself were premature.

Again the light of the Zeppelin enveloped them. The glare seemed like a warm bath of all-revealing light. There was a flash and then the shriek of a projectile as the aeroplane dipped under the glow of the light. Then came the boom of the report.

“Zey ought to learn to shoot,” muttered de Garros.

“Thank heaven they can do no better than they are,” rejoined Jack.

“Now we show zem zee clean pair of heels and run away,” said de Garros.

“I’m glad to hear that. I couldn’t stand much more of this,” thought Jack.

“If I was alone, or had an officer wiz me, we 258 go above zat Zeppelin high in zee air and blow him up,” announced de Garros cheerfully, after a minute or two. “Ah! zey get us again. Peste!”

The whine of a machine gun sounded as the searchlight of the pursuing Zeppelin again enveloped the bold little aeroplane. Her great bulk, big as a steamship, was rushed at top speed through the air. They could catch the roar of her four motors being driven at top speed.

De Garros had dropped again, and thanks to his skill, the aeroplane was still unhit, although the projectiles from the quick firer had come close enough for the occupants of the monoplane to hear their whine.

“We beat zem out!” exclaimed the Frenchman.

“Then we are faster than they are.”

“Oh, very much.”

“Well, we can’t be too fast for me,” muttered Jack. “I——”

“Sacre!”

259 The searchlight had again caught them, and again there had come reports from her underbody. This time the sharp crackle of rifles.

“Are you hurt?” cried Jack, as the Frenchman gave a sharp exclamation recorded above.

“Malediction, yes. Zey nick my hand. Eet is not bad. But worse zey hit zee motor I think.”

The smooth-running machine was no longer firing regularly. Its speed had decreased.

“What are you going to do now?” cried Jack. “We’ll be mowed down by those machine guns if we slow up.”

“We must come down.”

“But the Germans?”

“There are no campfires below us now.”

“But can you make a good landing?”

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

“Parbleu! If I cannot zen all our troubles are over, mon ami.”

The aeroplane began to descend, slowly at first and then faster. The dark earth sky-rocketed up at them from below.

But the disaster de Garros had feared more than admitted did not happen. Between two patches of wood lay an open field, readily distinguished even in the dark by its lighter color. In the stubble of a mown crop the aeroplane alighted, not without a considerable jolt to its occupants.

Their main anxiety now was the great Zeppelin they could hear, but not see, above them. Jack trusted they were equally invisible and that the searchlight would not reveal them, for high explosive bombs in a deadly rain from above would certainly follow.

De Garros, while wringing his wounded hand with pain, was helped out of the machine by Jack.

261 “Malediction, and I not get zee chance to fire on zat chien of a Zeppelin,” lamented the Frenchman. “Some day I pay zem back.”

“Is your hand badly hurt?” asked Jack anxiously.

“I do not know and we dare not yet use zee electric torch I ’ave on zee machine.”

“Why not?”

“It would show zee Zeppelin where we ’ide.”

“Then you don’t think they guess that we have descended?”

“No, if they had zey would search zee ground wiz zeir light.”

“That’s so.”

“But now they are point eet ’ere, zere, all over zee sky. If zey no find us zey think zat we are keel and zey go away.”

Jack shuddered at the narrow escape they had from this being made literally true.

For a long time, or so it seemed to the anxious watchers below, the Zeppelin soared above 262 them, her searchlight swinging in every direction. But at last the noise of her engines grew dimmer and the light vanished.

“Zey go away disgoost,” said de Garros, shrugging his shoulders. “Now we see what are zee chances of patching up my hand and getting zee engine going again.”

The electric light, carried to locate engine trouble at night, was switched on and brought out by its long wires over the side of the craft. Then began an anxious examination of the aviator’s hand.

It proved that the tip of his thumb, where it had laid on the edge of the wheel, had been badly nicked by a bullet, but luckily it was the left member.

“If zee engine ees capable of being fixed I can drive wiz my right hand,” declared the aviator. “Thank the bon Dieu that it was not zee steering wheel zat was struck.”

With the first aid kit, carried by all soldiers in the field, they soon dressed and bound the 263 injured member, and then came the examination of the engine, an investigation on which much depended. If it proved to have been too badly damaged to be repaired, they would not stand much chance for escape in a country so overrun with German troops. For all they knew some might be camped not far off. But they had to take their chance of that.

“Ciel, we are in zee luck!” exclaimed de Garros, after a brief examination, “the chiens only smashed a spark plug. I soon fix ’im and zen once more we start.”

The repair kit contained the necessary plug, which he quickly replaced. Then the journey through the night, which had already proved so eventful, was renewed. But now Jack felt a fresh alarm. How would they be able to tell at Louvain that it was a French and not a German aeroplane hovering above them.

He put the question to de Garros.

“Zat is easy. I ’ave on zee side of zee machine a set of four electric lights. Two are red, 264 one is green, one is white. Zat is zee secret night signal of zee French machines.”

“But suppose the Germans should find out your code?” asked Jack.

“Eet is changed every night. Sometimes two green, one white, one red—many combinations are possible.”

“By Jove, I never thought of that!” exclaimed Jack, struck by the simplicity of the idea, and relieved at the thought that there would be no danger of being attacked by mistake.

Half an hour later they landed at a sort of fair ground in Louvain after answering all challenges satisfactorily. The Germans were not yet at the gate of the city. But they were near at hand and the place was wrapped in darkness. However, on account of de Garros’ rank, they obtained an escort to the hotel.

Tired from the excitement and nervous strain, Jack went to bed, sighing with relief at the thought that all was so promising.

In about an hour or so he awakened from a 265 deep sleep. The night was sultry, and there was a strange calmness in the atmosphere seemingly weighed with grave and impending events.

Jack could not resist an impulse to leave his room and wander out into the deserted streets of Louvain.

He had not taken a dozen steps when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. Before he could turn to see his assailant, he was whisked from the ground and swept onward to a great height.

Still dead silence reigned.

It was some time later that Jack began to realize that he was a prisoner and borne on a giant aeroplane.

How did he get there?

Try as he would he could not answer that question. He gazed about him. Away in the distance he could distinguish small specks of light, which, were they not moving so rapidly about space, he would have mistaken for stars.

Below searchlights swept the horizon. Here and there were the glimmerings of fast dying out camp-fires. Suddenly a faint streamer of red light shot high into the air, held steadily for a moment, and then broke into a million colored globules.

267 “A signal,” thought Jack. “I wonder if it will be answered.”

He then became aware of a movement on the part of the air pilot. Till that moment he had not noticed the least sign of life from the wheel man. Now there came a soft blob and a red light shot into the air.

Almost instantly there again was darkness.

“By Jove!” whispered Jack to himself, amazedly. “This certainly is marvelously fast work!”

There was no repetition of the signals.

For a while Jack was content to gaze about him in idle wonder. He seemed indifferent to his plight. He drank in the scenes about him, gazed interestedly at other air-craft that passed them, and watched the sky begin to turn a dull slate color. It was the dawn of another day of carnage.

Others, too, were on the watch for these faint signs of day. From somewhere came the long, awful boom of a huge cannon.

Jack tried to get up, but fell back to his 268 former position. He only then realized that he was chained to his seat. He had a certain amount of freedom, but beyond that he was a prisoner, helpless.

“Well,” mused Jack upon this discovery, “even if my hands and feet were free, I could not escape from this height. We must land some time, and then I’ll have more need to use them.”

So Jack settled back to watch developments. Now everything was astir. A faint murmur was wafted to him on the morning breeze.

He could see the soldiers moving about, the great cannons and howitzers beginning to lumber onward, the column of Uhlans already in saddle, and the hundreds of air-craft rising to greet the early sun’s rays.

“It’s wonderful!” whispered Jack, fascinated. “Yes, wonderful, but how terrible! This whole array is primed to create nothing but havoc, sorrow, destruction, and death! Gee, but I’m glad the good old United States has no need for such military organization!”

269 Another sound came to his ears, and cut short his thoughts of America. In an astonishingly brief time, the Army of the Invasion had completed its formations and was on the march, the rank and file, all deep-throated men, singing Das Fatherland.

“Good God!” gasped Jack. “They are going to their death with a song on their lips!”

From somewhere in front of these columns came a roar of cannon. The air was filled with shrill, piercing shrieks as tons upon tons of metal, charged with fearful destructive powers, tried to stem the human flood.

For a few minutes the smoke and steam hid the dreadful spectacle from Jack. He gazed intently below him, anxious to see the victor of this clash.

Of course, it must not be forgotten that the human waves of men were supported by great artillery fire on their own side. Unaided entirely these men would have been annihilated miles before the fortresses.

270 The ranks were on the double run now. Their bayonets glistened in the dull sunlight. On, on, ever on, they went, keeping perfect stride, never faltering.

Jack could not tear his eyes from the sight.

Even while storming the redoubt, the ranks held firm. Another sheet of flame checked them for a moment. They tried to recover, and somehow couldn’t. Again came that destructive, raking fire. The lines faltered.

Jack trembled from excitement. Was this magnificent effort to fail? He was not thinking of them as Germans. He was only aware of brave, dauntless men trying to best steel and explosives.

Again came a sheet of flame.

The ranks actually seemed to fall back.

Then once more, from the rear, rose the deep notes of Das Fatherland. It stiffened the thinned ranks. They rushed forward, the fierce cry of victory mingling with the strains of their national anthem.

271 “That was great!” cried Jack. “My sympathies are not very strongly with the Germans, but I’m bound to give credit where credit is due. Well, what now——?”

Jack became aware that the machine on which he was a prisoner was going to make a landing. Silently, swiftly, the winged mechanism was guided toward earth behind the German lines.

Jack smiled with satisfaction.

“I’ll have a chance to stretch my legs,” he said. “As long as Radwig is dead, I have not so much to fear. I wonder what they want of me?”

The machine came to a stop. The pilot never moved from his seat. Instead, he motioned to a soldier to come to him. Evidently a few words were exchanged.

A sharp command was issued.

Two soldiers came up to Jack. He held up his hands to show that he was chained. One of the soldiers leaned forward, and pressed a button at the side of the car. The chains fell from Jack.

Without comment the two soldiers seized Jack and flanked him. A detail of six additional men fell in step, a petty officer wheeled about,—a movement that acted as a signal for the soldiers to march.

273 A five-minute walk brought them to a small cottage. Here they halted. Jack was blindfolded. When the bandage was removed, he found himself facing an elderly man seated at a desk. Jack could not make out his features, as they were hidden in a gray mask.

“Sprechen sie Deutsch?” he was asked.

Jack understood the question, and replied:

“No.”

“What is your nationality?” came the question in English.

“American.”

“What part of America?”

“New York.”

“Your occupation?”

“Wireless operator.”

“For your government?”

“No, for the Transatlantic Shipping Combine.”

There followed a short pause. Jack was wondering what next to expect. The questions had been brief and propounded in a crisp, 274 commanding way. There was no leeway for equivocation.

“Do you tell the truth?”

“I do,” replied Jack quietly.

“Why do you tell the truth?”

“Because I believe in it,” said Jack simply.

“Under what circumstances did you first meet Herr Radwig?”

Jack, greatly surprised, hesitated. Would it be wise to tell everything? How under the sun did this man in the gray mask know so much?

“Remember, the truth.”

Jack thought quickly. The question implied that this officer had some knowledge of his dealings with Radwig. Possibly, also, the officer was about to test the value of his declaration that he told the truth. So Jack figured. But was this not an amazing illustration of the wonderful efficiency and thoroughness of the German Secret Service.

“Speak!” came the imperative command.

“Very well,” replied Jack calmly. “It was on 275 the Kronprinzessin Emilie. It seemed that we were about to be dashed to pieces on floating icebergs. Some shrieked:

“‘The Titanic!’

“‘The boats!’ shouted a man. He violently pushed two women aside, wedged in the panic-stricken throng. I stood at the head of the companion way. The man told me to get out of the way. I tried to calm the people. But this man seemed to have lost his reason. He rushed at me, trying to strike me. I was too quick for him. I struck first. He staggered back, subdued. It was only later that I learned this man’s name.”

“And then—how and when did you meet Herr Radwig?”

So Jack had to relate incident after incident. Always, at the end of a recital, came the same question, asked in the same matter-of-fact tone of voice:

“And then—when and where did you meet Herr Radwig?”

Everything must have its end. At last Jack 276 had modestly related every episode with which the reader has been made acquainted. The even tone of his questioner, his piercing eyes, and the unbroken silence was beginning to weary Jack. He felt that he could hardly keep his wits about him.

Evidently the German officer noticed these signs and was patiently waiting for them. He leaned forward, and the steady monotone now gave place to a rasping, menacing gruffness.

“Who are you?” he suddenly snapped.

“An American,” came the tired reply.

“An American!” jeered the officer.

“Yes, and I’m proud of it!”

“Why should you be proud of something you could not help?”

“I don’t understand you,” replied Jack, passing his hand over his brow as if to clear away the ever increasing drowsiness.

“You don’t understand me?”

Jack shook his head.

“Answer me!”

277 Jack opened his mouth to speak, his lips moved, but he could utter no sound. He stood still, staring stupidly at the man in front of him. His thoughts were befuddled. What did he—the man in the gray mask—want?

“I wish those eyes wouldn’t glare at me so,” Jack mumbled to himself. “I didn’t do anything to them.”

But the eyes behind the gray mask became larger, rounder, more compelling. Jack knew instinctively that they meant him harm. What power they held! Something within him fought to arouse him. He tried to move and could not. Larger, ever larger those eyes seemed to grow! The features of the man were lost; in fact, those eyes seemed to belong to no one; they seemed to have life and power, dreadful power, of their own.

Jack shrieked with terror!

Was he lost?

Did it ever occur to you that nature plays many pranks? From the many learned books and men—and from daily events—we are lead to assume that nature is grim, relentless. On the whole, this assumption is true. But one of the things that has made nature a harder problem for man to solve is that there are the most unexpected exceptions to the most carefully proved rules. Sometimes these exceptions take place with things and sometimes with persons.

Nature had played a prank with Jack.

When he came to his senses he found de Garros solicitously bending over him, his broken English running riot in his native French.

“What’s up?” questioned bewildered Jack.

279 De Garros shrugged his shoulders.

“I—er—phew! Zee—la—compron—eh—— I understand not! You make zee big cry, I in rush—excited much—phew!”

Jack sat up in bed.

“Are we still in Louvain?” he demanded.

“We, we, certainly!” de Garros hastened to assure him.

A big sigh of relief welled from Jack.

“De Garros,” he said, “I have had the most remarkable nightmare!”

Whereupon Jack related to de Garros, as well as he could recall the details, the dream that had seemed so real.

De Garros was thrilled. Every now and then he broke into the recital with exclamations most expressive of the impressions they made upon him.

“And now,” Jack said in conclusion, “I think it is best for us to dress. I have never dreamed before, and I never want to dream again, if all dreams are so terribly real.”

280 De Garros laughingly agreed with him.

When Jack had dressed, he began to explore the corridors of the hotel. He felt that Bill, Tom Jukes and Pottle were guests of it. Of course, the easiest way about it would have been to inquire at the office.

As the hour was rather early he did not care to do this at once. A little later Jack was joined by de Garros, and together they walked into the dining room. Even at this hour several tables were occupied.

Almost at once the two were espied by their friends. A more amazed and glad set of chaps would have been indeed difficult to find anywhere.

“Honest, Jack,” cried Bill, tears of real joy in his eyes, “we had given up all hope of ever seeing you again.”

“Man alive!” declared Tom Jukes, “you can’t imagine how we felt, for we knew that there was no chance of getting through to save you.”

“Blues—here—everybody!” exploded Pottle. 281 “Funeral cheerful in comparison—no eat—no food—just blues!”

“Come, Jack,” invited Bill, “and de Garros, breakfast with us and tell us about it.”

So, between mouthfuls, Jack related his experiences with Radwig’s party of Uhlans. Affectionately he placed his hand on de Garros’ arm, and soberly said:

“I owe my life to you. If it hadn’t been for you——”

“It was sure luck, the greatest ever,” declared Tom Jukes.

“Fine stuff—fooled the enemy—shot at sunrise—others get shot instead—up in the air—down again—all safe—at last—hurray!” cried Pottle, capering about wildly.

“I can’t think it was luck,” said Jack gravely. “I think there was a higher power than that concerned in it.”

“You are right,” agreed Bill.

“Read—ee—mon ami, you ’ave not forget zee dream,” slyly remarked de Garros.

282 Jack turned scarlet. Somehow he felt that it was not very manlike to have even bothered with nightmares.

“What’s this?” demanded Bill.

“Come on, now,” coaxed Tom; “don’t hold anything back.”

“Dreams?” questioned Pottle. “Dreams? Great stuff—big inventors—and Columbus—dreamers!”

So Jack went over that adventure again.

This time, however, he decided to tell it in the way it actually happened. The result was that when Jack led them up to the climax he held even de Garros spellbound.

Jack ceased to speak and looked at his friends.

“How did you get away?” asked Bill.

“I didn’t,” was the smiling reply.

“You didn’t!” came the perplexed chorus.

De Garros was chuckling softly. He had to admire Jack’s cleverness.

“Battle—prisoner—great fight—man in gray 283 mask—disappear—eyes bigger and bigger—what’s this—fairy tale?”

“No, Pottle,” replied Jack, “it was only a dream.”

For a moment there was silence and then they all broke into peals of laughter, laughter that seemed so strange and out of place in these days frought with war’s devastation.

So they had the good sense to check their merriment, especially as they saw the eyes of many surprised men and women upon them.

They soon left the dining room, and prepared to leave Louvain. Late that afternoon arrangements were completed.

Regretful good-byes were said to plucky little de Garros, whose demonstrative eyes were wet as he clasped their hands in farewell.

“We may nevaire meet again,” he stammered, “but I nevaire forget you all.”

“Nor will we forget you!” cried Jack warmly. “You—you, if it hadn’t been for you——”

“Read—ee, mon ami, you ’ave forget what you 284 do for me long ago. A fair exchange. You save my life.”

“You’re fine,” exploded Pottle. “Legion of Honor cross for you—long war—much dead—much wounded—but you’ll live!”

A prediction, strangely enough, that came true.

Before the fall of Louvain, Jack and his friends were across the border in France. Ultimately they were lucky enough to rejoin the St. Mark—sent for the accommodation of refugees—at Marseilles.

A cable was despatched to America, telling of Tom Juke’s safety.

Pottle, the young photographer, cabled his paper, asking for permission to remain in the battle zone. This was granted.

So the trio—Jack, Bill and Tom—said farewell to Pottle.

“When I get back—possible—the paper will make—hurrah!—look me up—eh?”

“We sure will, old top,” promised Tom.

286 The voyage across was without incident, save that, as was expected, they were stopped by British warships.

So, one fine morning, unannounced, Jack called upon Uncle Toby Ready. The old tar gave vent to a great cry of joy. Though Jack had often been away for long periods, Uncle Toby never fully knew the thrilling adventure Jack had participated in. Now there was no hiding of the truth. The war was at hand. The Germans were sweeping everything before them. How had it fared with Jack? This uncertainty had worried Uncle Toby. He felt that he would never be able to forgive himself, had anything happened to Jack.

When the first greetings were over, Uncle Toby could not help but ask about his Golden Embrocation and Universal Remedy for Man and Beast.

“Did you meet up with the King of England?” he queried.

“No, Uncle Toby,” laughed Jack, “I did not.”

287 “Be it so with the Kaiser?”

“No, not the Kaiser, either.”

“How now—was it the Czar?”

Jack shook his head.

“But made a—use of ’em?”

“Yes,” replied Jack with a twinkle in his eye. “I did make——”

At this moment there came a sharp rap on the door. Jack opened it, and a messenger, upon ascertaining who he was, handed him a telegram.

“What now?” demanded Uncle Toby.

Jack tore open the envelope. The inclosed sheet read:

“Congratulations and grateful appreciation. Report immediately.

“Yeou ain’t a-goin’ back to Europe!” declared Uncle Toby emphatically.

“Don’t worry, Uncle,” replied Jack. “I don’t think it is for that Mr. Jukes wants me.”

“Well, if he don’t,” replied the old captain, “give ’im a bottle of my Golden Embrocation 288 and Universal Remedy for Man and Beast with my compliments.”

“All right,” laughed Jack as he put the bottle in his pocket, never intending, of course, to carry out the errand.

Jack found Mr. Jukes in earnest conversation with his son, Tom. However, the moment Jack entered, father and son arose.

“Jack,” said Mr. Jukes, extending his hand, “let me thank you.”

It was said sincerely and simply. Their handclasp was hearty and true.

Mr. Jukes began to pace the office.

Tom looked at Jack and winked.

“Young man,” suddenly said Mr. Jukes, sternly addressing Jack, “you are bound to succeed in life. You have the makings. You have your trade—or shall I call it profession? But operating wireless is not everything. You can be a wireless operator all your life and your salary will be your only means of keeping the wolf from the door. Too many of our people have 289 to depend on that means of support. Some day I feel it will be different. At all events, I shall make a beginning with you. So Tom and I have decided to give you a number of shares in our Combine.”

Thereupon Mr. Jukes went on to explain the value of the shares, instructing Jack just what he should do with them. To tell the truth, Jack had never troubled himself very much with the intricacies of stock values.

Finally Jack left Mr. Jukes’ office feeling like a millionaire.

“Strange,” mused Jack, “that this good fortune should come to me when thousands of others are losing their all in Europe.”

Feeling thus satisfied, Jack decided to acquaint Helen Dennis with the good news. As he strolled down to the dock, he could not help but note that in so far as New York was concerned, the war did not exist. People went about their business in their accustomed way. Beyond the usual set or serious expression characteristic of 290 the average New Yorker when he is engaged in earning his dividends or salary, as the case may be in different instances and walks of life, the average person seemed absolutely unconcerned of the World Tragedy that was unfolding itself across the sea.

At the docks, however, there was increased activity. The demand upon American ammunition and commodities had jumped by leaps and bounds. Shippers were reaping a harvest.

The Silver Star, Captain Dennis’ ship, was in port. Jack had little difficulty in getting aboard. Captain Dennis was delighted to see Jack. He could spare but little time, so when Jack had told him only briefly of his experiences, the wise tar, his eyes twinkling with mischief, said:

“Really, Jack, don’t you think Helen would be more interested in your adventures?”

Jack blushed.

“Never mind, lad,” laughed the captain, “we all have those days, you know.”

So Jack made his way to the captain’s cabin.

291 But let us say nothing more of them; rather let us ask what became of Bill Raynor?

Just before Jack called upon his Uncle Toby, Bill had expressed a desire to stroll about the Great City.

“You see,” Bill said in explanation, “the sight of old New York makes me glad to be back again. They say it’s a selfish place. Well, perhaps there are towns that make you feel more at home, but once you know Manhattan’s ways, you don’t want to change!”

“Have it your way,” agreeably laughed Jack.

So they parted for the time being.

Feeling hungry, Bill decided to visit one of the select downtown restaurants his purse seldom allowed him to patronize. Now, as the reader will remember, Bill had no need to worry over funds—at any rate, not for the immediate future.

293 Bill thoroughly enjoyed his meal. He left the restaurant feeling like a prince.

“Those prices are steep,” he reflected, “but the food and service are worth it.”

Barely had he walked a block when he recognized Tom Jukes a few strides in front of him. Bill’s first impulse was to hail Tom, but something about the latter made him hesitate.

“Something seems queer,” muttered Tom, puzzled. He was undecided. Should he follow the millionaire’s son?

Tom Jukes seemed anxious to avoid being seen. Every now and then he glanced about him hurriedly. He kept close to the building line, his cap pulled over his eyes. He turned into one of those ancient alleys down in the financial district of New York.

Bill Raynor came to a quick decision.

“I’ll follow him!” he muttered.

A moment later Bill was also in the moldy alleyway. Tom swung south, then west, and south again, and finally halted before a pair of 294 ornamental iron gates of the most antique and peculiar design.

Bill, mystified that such places still existed in the Great Metropolis, dogged Tom’s footsteps, always careful to keep well out of sight.

He saw Tom pass through these iron gates. A moment later Bill had followed Tom through, though now he had to be far more careful, for every flagstone seemed to give up a hollow bellow.

Tom walked up an iron staircase clinging to a decaying bulk of a dirt-gray stone ramshackle building. He climbed one flight and then disappeared from view.

Bill, very carefully—every nerve alert—followed. A moment later he stepped into a long, dim, lofty corridor, walled with marble of a greenish tint, and smelling faintly of dry-rot.

Picking his steps with the greatest caution, Bill felt his way forward. Somewhere in front of him he saw the shadowy form of Tom.

Bill saw Tom pause before a door, which he 295 opened very slowly. A faint light came from within. A moment later Tom had disappeared from view.

Bill crept forward.

Should he open the door?

“I wish Jack were here,” said Bill to himself.

Jack, it was, who had won the approval of Jacob Jukes, head of the great shipping combine, and father of Tom, for his masterly handling of many difficult situations.

Under the circumstances, Bill did not flinch in his determination to learn what was going on behind that door!

Bill put his ear to the door—and at once heard a faint tick-tick, as well as a muffled voice. Slowly Bill felt the door for the knob and to his surprise he found there was none!

“Entrance by signal only!” instantly decided Bill.

But how was he to get in without it?

His eyes were now more accustomed to the gloom. He looked about him, hoping to find a 296 window or some outlet that might lead to the barred room.

Farther down the corridor, to his right, he saw a stairway—or what appeared to be a stairway. He walked toward it, always bearing in mind to be extremely careful.

He climbed up one flight without mishap. On this floor, the feeling of desertion and forlorn desolation grew deeper. Bill could barely suppress a shiver.

Suddenly a rat scampered across the floor.

“Phew!” ejaculated Bill, “this is some place!”

He noticed a thin ray of daylight a short distance from him. Bill at once decided to discover its origin. A moment later he saw that the light flowed from the cracks of a door.

A brief investigation proved the door to be unlocked. As he quietly pulled the door open he saw that the room was absolutely bare, and that the light came from the mud-pasted windows facing a brick wall not five feet from them.

Bill tip-toed across the room, and raised one 297 of the windows. To his satisfaction he at once noticed the drain pipe at arm’s length. A moment later he had slid to the floor below.

To his surprise he saw the window of that mysterious room wide open. He could see only part of it. There seemed many men listlessly sitting about, though the majority kept unseeing eyes on a blackboard.

“A blind tiger!” breathed Bill, amazed.

Bill meant that it was a fake racing broker’s place. In years gone by there were many such dens of evil in New York, where congregated the broken-hearted, the reckless, the unscrupulous, all of whom tempted fate on this horse or that. As a rule the proprietor controlled the destinies of his victims, for he could “fake” any information he desired as to what horse won or lost. Happily these dens are now more scarce than hen’s teeth. It was these dens, the graves of dupes, that were called blind tigers.

“Does Tom play the ponies?” wondered Bill.

He listened intently.

298 Somewhere a ticker droned, and a husky voice announced:

“Gas a half—five eighths; Steel six—nine hundred at a quarter—a thousand—five-hundred—a quarter—an eighth—Erie—an eighth—Steam—an eighth——”

“What does this mean?” questioned Bill. “It sounds like stock quotations. Can it be——?”

He decided to risk glancing into the room.

At some risk of losing his hold he balanced himself in order to accomplish his wish.

He saw a room, unclean and unwholesome. The men seemed to be of the discarded of the street, the diseased and maimed of the financial district; here and there was a younger, smarter type, the kind that makes the gangster, the pickpocket and worse. He also saw Tom sitting quietly yet alert. At his elbow was a young man, somewhat older than Tom. On the wall facing the window was a great blackboard, and as the ticker spelled out its information, and the 299 slovenly dressed clerk gave it voice, a second clerk chalked away without cessation.

Beyond this clerk’s announcements everything was quiet. Bill felt himself slipping, so he silently swung back to his former position. The light of understanding was in his eyes.

“By Jove, it’s a bucket shop!”

Now a bucket shop is where people buy and sell stock on less margin or in smaller quantity than is accepted on the curb on Broad Street or on the Stock Exchange. These establishments, too, are fast disappearing, though as is always possible in New York, an exception—as in all directions of semi-organized crime—manages to keep from the sharp talons of the law for a longer period of time.

The bucket shops were where messenger boys and clerks gamboled with Dame Fortune. Sooner or later they lost—lost not only every cent to their names, but much of their self-respect and honesty. It was also the place for the men who had gone down to defeat in the 300 great battle fought bitterly every minute of the day in the great financial arena. These men were unfit for everything else, so they turned to the bucket shops as a drowning man grasps at a straw. But we have digressed enough—though this was really necessary—and let us continue with the narrative.

Bill did not know what to make of it all.

Surely Tom Jukes had little need to play for stakes. His father was sufficiently wealthy and knew the great money game, and its pitfalls, not to have acquainted his son with them. The more Bill thought, the more puzzled he became.

Suddenly he heard Tom shout:

“You robber, you thief!”

“Git out,” bawled the voice, evidently that of the proprietor, “or I’ll have you put out!”

“You do, and I’ll have you in the hands of the police within twenty-four hours!”

“You will, will you?” came the snarling challenge, followed by a general commotion.

“Here’s where I take a hand!” decided Bill, 301 and leaped into the room, now in fearful confusion.

“Stop!” cried Bill, drawing his revolver, which he had a special permit to carry at any time he wished, “or I’ll fire!”

His command was obeyed.

“Stand where you are!” Bill demanded, noting a suspicious movement on the part of several to escape.

“Bill, good old Bill!” exclaimed Tom, overjoyed.

“Yes, it’s Bill,” was the reply. “Call up Headquarters while I hold them in line.”

“That’s your tip, Fred,” said Tom, turning to the young man Bill had noticed before. “On the run now!”

The young man called Fred seemed to need no further invitation.

Tom now joined Bill. From one of the drawers of the desk at which the proprietor had been seated, Tom brought to light an ugly-looking Colt.

302 “Let’s move ’em toward the rear!” suggested Tom. “Some of ’em are showing signs of restlessness.”

“All right!” acquiesced Bill.

So, at the point of the revolvers, everyone in the room was lined up against the rear wall. The older men, who had seen better days, appeared indifferent to it all. To them life meant very little. Spirit, youth, ambition, success had long passed them by. They still clung to the vain hope of winning something out of sheer habit. Stock gambling, like opium, oftentimes urges on its victim until the sands of life slowly ebb away. The younger no-accounts scowled darkly. But what could they do? Those two lads were too business-like to attempt anything rash.

“Say,” growled the proprietor, addressing Tom, “can’t we call this quits?”

“Nothing doing!” was the curt reply, both boys at once becoming more alert that ever.

“Aw, take a joke,” pleaded the man. “I’ll square it with you. Honest I will.”

303 Both boys remained silent.

“I’ll tell you what,” continued the owner, “just to square myself, I’ll throw in one hundred dollars.”

Silence.

“Five hundred!”

“You’re going out of business,” announced Tom. “Save your breath!”

“One thousand dollars!”

“One more word,” warned Bill, “and I won’t be responsible for my action. Keep still.”

Defeated, the man depicted his silent disdain.

A moment later Fred and the police arrived. The police captain in charge wanted the boys to go along to press the charge, but Tom, upon quickly satisfying the officer of their intentions of doing so the next day—especially establishing that Tom was the son of Jacob Jukes, the multimillionaire—were at liberty to proceed as they pleased.

“Explanations are now in order.”

“Correct,” replied Tom. “Let me first 304 introduce Fred Strong, an old-time friend of mine. Bill Raynor, one of the finest boys in the world!”

The introduction was acknowledged with appropriate remarks. Tom then unfolded a most interesting story. Fred was a Wall Street clerk—and, like many others, dabbled in stocks. He kept on losing. So, desperate, he attempted to court luck at the bucket shop a friend of his had told him of. For a time he won. His hopes rose. Then the inevitable reverses began. The proprietor meanwhile had studied his victim. Fred, without realizing it, became one of his dupes. He loaned money from every one. He began to tamper with his books. Disgrace stared him in the face when he met Tom. A few hours had straightened out all tangles. Tom, however, insisted on bringing the bucket shop keeper to book.

“Well, that’s all to it!” interspersed Tom.

“Hold on,” expostulated Bill, “why did you sneak along the street as if wishing to be unrecognized?”

305 “Easy,” replied Tom. “Saw dad, across the street, so had to—as you say—sneak.”

“Phew!” whistled Bill, astonished. “I never saw him. One other point, how did you know the revolver was in that desk?”

“It seems,” answered Tom, “that the bucket shop proprietor made it a practice to show new customers that weapon. I suppose it was an effective reminder that all disagreements might be settled rather abruptly.”

“Well,” chimed in Fred, “let us forget about it. I’ll never play the market again. But, boys, I want you to come with me. I have to tell this story to the sweetest girl in town. You’ve got to meet her!”

“If you insist, lead on,” replied Tom. “But suppose you tell her the truth of the matter, and then,—well—I guess Bill and I will be honored, I’m sure!”

Bill laughed outright.

“I never suspected,” he said, “you had so much of the so-called ‘society sass’.”

306 Tom chuckled with glee. He was highly satisfied with the first day’s adventure in America. In excellent spirits, the trio rode uptown. While en route Bill briefly told, in turn, of catching sight of Tom, and the consequences thereof.

An hour later Fred brought them to a neatly nestled house. There was a hand-ball court on the property, and Fred saw to it that they were made to feel at home. Then he entered the house.

“Elsie,” said Fred, when first greetings were over and they were comfortably settled, “I’ve something to tell you.”

“What is it, Fred?”

“I—I couldn’t buy you the engagement ring—be—because I lost the money.”

“That is too bad! But don’t mind it, dear. I can wait.”

“It’s nice of you to say it, but I lost the money on stocks.”

“Tell me about it,” she requested calmly, though there was a break in her voice.

307 So Fred related the facts already familiar to us. Nor did he spare himself in the recital. At its conclusion, there was a moment’s silence. Then——

“Fred,” said the girl softly, “I’m glad you told me of this. Please, Fred, don’t gamble again—whether it be on cards or stocks—and if you were younger—I’d add buttons and marbles.”

“I’ve already promised not to do so—but Elsie, I have something else to tell you. I have a new position at a higher salary—thirty dollars a week.”

“That’s great!”

“It’ll be more—if I make good.”

“Fred, I’m so glad.”

A pause.

“The cost of living is very high now,” asked Fred—“isn’t it?”

“I should say so! Diamonds will soon be cheaper than onions or potatoes or cut sugar.”

“Elsie!”

308 “Yes?”

“Would you like—could you—I mean—er—do you think two persons could live on thirty dollars a week?”

“Certainly!”

“How about us?”

“Oh, George!”

“Elsie!”

A blissful interval. Then—

“Elsie—I’ve completely forgotten! Those two boys I told you of are playing handball. They insisted that I confess my crimes before you met them!”

A moment later Fred was introducing Tom and Bill to Elsie. The young lady’s form of greeting was most unexpected and unconventional. Before either of the boys could surmise her intention, she had kissed them!

Of course general laughter and banter followed. Of this let us say no more.

The reader, however, may rest assured that the boys whose adventures we have followed 309 through six volumes were always true to American ideals and aspirations. They participated in many strange and thrilling adventures. We may write of these in the near future, but for the time being, with every good wish for the bright future that appears assured to them, we will bid farewell to the Ocean Wireless Boys.