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CHAPTER XXIII
MEETING AN OLD FRIEND

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?”

“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.

“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 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.

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 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.

CHAPTER XXIV
THE SKY SLAYER

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 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 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?”

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 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.

“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 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.”

“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!

CHAPTER XXV
IN THE GLARE OF FLAMES

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 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 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.”

“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.

“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.”

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, 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.”

CHAPTER XXVI
TWO YOUNG HEROES

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 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 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 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 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.

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.

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.”