Under Fire For Servia

"They're not badly hurt," said Steve, contemptuously. "They saw the crate falling and so did I. And they tried to jump. So it didn't fall full on top of them, but struck glancing blows on their heads and almost pushed them out of the way. I don't see how you ever got it going at all, all by yourself! It looks terribly heavy."

"I think it was because it wasn't very well balanced, Steve. If it had been turned the other way probably I couldn't have budged it. But the heavy end was on top, which made it go over. I sort of jumped at it, and that gave it the start."

"I'm afraid we'll have to leave them here," said Steve. "I wish there was some way for us to take them along, but I don't see how we can. We might be able to drag Hallo with us, but we wouldn't get very far."

"I suppose not. He has lots of friends, hasn't he? I saw ever so many people stop and speak to him when I was following him on the way here."

"I don't think he's got many friends, but there are a lot of people who know him, all right. Still, it isn't that – it would be making ourselves conspicuous by having him with us at all."

"It would be a good thing to take him, though, if we could, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, yes. The best thing in the world! If we could only get him to our boat and carry him back to Belgrade!"

"Steve, how about the men who are working in the tunnel under the arsenal?"

"What do you mean? What do you know about the tunnel under the arsenal?"

Steve was startled and dismayed, but Dick laughed at him.

"That's all I know," he said. "Just that there is such a thing, Steve. You needn't be frightened – I haven't been spying around. But this man that came here to see Mike Hallo knew all about it. He told him the mine was going to be sprung to-night, and that they must hasten to stop it."

"That ends the last doubt! He is a traitor!" said Steve. "He surely will have to pay the price of treachery, too, when there is an opportunity."

"Do you mean that they will kill him?"

"What else can be done? It is his life against a nation, Dick. A man like that may cause a thousand deaths by betraying a single secret. But – about the men in the tunnel. I might have known that there was some good reason for your knowing. Yes, it is true. There are men working there, and they will try to explode their mine and blow up the arsenal to-night."

"Can't you reach them? I think that two or three men might get Hallo through the town and to the boathouse. They could pretend that he was drunk, and that they were helping him along, if he was still unconscious."

"Dick, I think you've hit on the right idea again! I'll try to get them. But suppose they come to first?"

"If we tied them up?" was Dick's suggestion.

"It would be risky. The watchman may come here at any moment after he hears no more voices."

"Yes, that's so. How long would it take you to go?"

"To go and come back? Twenty minutes, perhaps."

"Then go! Don't delay any longer, and I will stay here and keep watch."

"In here? No, it is too dangerous. I am afraid now, if they learn what you have done for us, they will be able to make a real charge against you, and that even your consul could not help you to escape severe punishment."

"I would not wait here – not in here, Steve. I would watch outside. Look! Do you see these grains of corn?"

He picked up a handful of the kernels from a sample basket on the table.

"Yes. What about them, Dick?"

"I will keep watch. If he comes out, I will follow him and every three or four feet I will let a little of this corn drop, so that it will mark a trail for you to follow. Do you see the idea?"

"Yes, and that is magnificent, Dick! That is the best chance we shall ever have of catching him. It will be better for him to come out, for he will lead you away from the busier part of the city, perhaps, so that it will be easier for us to take him! I'm off! I think we have a chance to get the scoundrel this time, thanks to you!"

They slipped out together, leaving the two unconscious men.

"I think Hallo will come to before long," said Dick. "The other will take longer for he seemed to be more badly stunned, or else he's not as strong as Hallo. Will Mike leave him there, do you think?"

"Yes. Why not? He will be thinking of his own precious skin, you may be sure. Good luck, Dick! I'll be back just as soon as I can!"

"Yes – hurry! But I think we'll be all right."

Dick took his place in a dark doorway on the opposite side of the street and began his vigil. The seconds seemed to drag by endlessly, but Dick never took his eyes from the entrance of the warehouse. And at last – he had really been waiting less than ten minutes! – he was rewarded. Hallo came out holding his hand to his head, staggering a little as he walked. Dick gave him a start, and then crossed and followed. He dropped his corn as he went, and his hand was on the automatic pistol in his pocket, which somehow gave him a sense of security.

Hallo turned a corner; Dick hurried a little. And, as he rounded the corner in his turn, there was Hallo – waiting! At the sight of Dick he almost screamed, but choked the cry.

"So it's you, is it?" he cried. He made a savage rush, his arms outstretched like those of a gorilla.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EXPLOSION

But the sight of the wicked looking little gun in Dick's hand stopped his rush. Mouthing his words, venomous hate in his eyes, he checked himself.

"What do you want, you little devil?" he said, grittingly.

"Turn around!" said Dick, savagely. Somehow that wild rush that had stopped just as the man's cruel arms were about to close about him had aroused something in Dick that he had never felt before. For the first time he knew what it meant to see red. He felt that he would like to have Hallo down and beat him with his fists, with the butt of his pistol – with anything, if it would only hurt his enemy enough!

Hallo tried to meet his eyes for a moment. Then he turned round, so that his back was to Dick. The scout pressed the muzzle of the little automatic, that, despite its tiny proportions, was still such a deadly weapon, into the small of Hallo's back.

"Do you feel that?" he said. "And do you know that I can't miss when you're so close to me? Don't think I am afraid to shoot because I tell you right now, Mike Hallo, that I'll fire the first time you don't do exactly as I say."

"You'll pay for this!" said Hallo, furiously. "This isn't America, with its lynchings, where people can take the law into their own hands."

"You needn't sneer at America!" said Dick, with cold anger in his voice. "You earned a good living there, and made a small fortune – and you stole another! Now, then, step forward! Slowly – and go straight ahead until I tell you to turn."

With a snarl Hallo obeyed. And Dick, as he went along behind him, keeping the pistol in such a position that he could use it on the instant, began to talk to him.

"You're a joke, Mike Hallo," he said, contemptuously. "The next time you try to swindle someone, don't pick an American family. You thought you were safe here, because we didn't have the money to hire big lawyers to go after you, didn't you? You never expected to see me here in Semlin. And when you did, you thought you'd fixed me by getting them to arrest me!"

"I had nothing to do with that," protested Hallo. His blustering, savage mood seemed to be passing, and he was disposed to cringe.

"Oh, no!" said Dick. "Of course not! You didn't want me to be driven out of Semlin! You wanted me to stay here and get back the money you stole from my father. You don't care anything about money, either, I suppose? Oh, no! You don't care any more about money than you do about your right hand! You wouldn't do anything to turn a dishonest penny except murder and treason and robbery, would you?"

"Dick, I've always been friendly to you and your family," said Hallo, tremulously. "I'm half an American. I tell you what I'll do. We'll let bygones be bygones. I lost more than your family did in the failure, back there in New York, of course. But I've done pretty well since I came home here to Hungary."

"I should think so!" said Dick. "How much has the Austrian government paid you for the spy's work you have done? Why, you even cheated your government! You're not even a patriot!"

For the first time, seemingly, Hallo guessed that Dick might have something to do with the enemies he really feared – the Servians with whom he had been playing fast and loose for weeks.

"What do you mean by that?" he cried, turning half around in his eagerness.

Dick jammed the pistol into his ribs to remind him of it.

"Go on! Keep your face turned away from me! I don't like the looks of it!" he said, viciously.

"Do you know Stepan Dushan?" asked Hallo.

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" said Dick.

"See here, Dick, there's no use in your being angry at me any more. Perhaps I was mistaken. I will tell you, in any case, what I will do. I will overlook everything that you have done here in Semlin, and I will arrange to have the police charge against you withdrawn. That is a very serious matter, let me tell you. If I did not have a great deal of influence with the big people here it would be quite impossible to arrange it. And I will give you, besides, twenty-five thousand dollars!"

Dick laughed.

"Go on," he said. "Walk faster!"

"Thirty-five thousand – "

"If you offered a million, I would believe you just as easily," said Dick. "I know you for just what you are, Mike Hallo! You're a low down liar and cheat and swindler, and I wouldn't believe you under oath. If I accepted your proposition, you'd never pay me a cent, and you'd do your best to get me into prison here besides."

"No – no – I'm telling you the truth, Dick! I will do it, I swear it! Do you think I have no gratitude? It is of the greatest possible importance that I should be free at once to attend to some pressing business!"

"It isn't half so important as you think, Mike," said Dick, with a laugh. "And you're attending to some very pressing business right now, too. The most pressing business you ever had in your life is to keep right on walking the way I tell you to and moving as fast as you can, too."

"But, Dick, I tell you I shall be ruined if you make me go on! How can I pay back the money you came for if I am ruined?"

"I don't know – and I'm not trying to guess riddles to-night. It seems to agree with you pretty well to be ruined, though. You made a lot of money out of being ruined in New York, didn't you?"

"Dick, I have known you since you were a baby! Your father was my best friend – "

"Don't remind me of that!" said Dick, angrily. He had been a little amused by Hallo's desperate pleading, but this reference to his father, whom the man before him had treated so outrageously, revived his anger. "The best chance you've got to get through right now is for me to forget about how friendly you were with my father and how you began to cheat him as soon as he was dead and couldn't watch you any longer!"

"Dick, I will make a last appeal! In the safe in my office there is money – a great sum of money! You can have all of it – every florin! There is much more there than you ever said I owed your mother! The combination of the safe is written in the pocket book in my right hand pocket. Take it out – go back and get the money. I will write out an order for you to take it – I will write out an admission that I cheated your family! Only, let me go before it is too late!"

"No – nothing doing! Straight ahead!"

Perhaps there was a certain note of finality in Dick's voice; perhaps Hallo was just trying to think of some new temptation to put before him. He was silent, at any rate and so, for a minute, was Dick. Dick was really greatly amused by Hallo's pleadings. And now he could not resist a dig. It was revenge, and he took it without delay.

"This ought to be a lesson to you, Mr. Hallo," he said. "I remember that when I was a little bit of a chap you were always telling me that – saying that this thing or that ought to be a lesson to me. Do you remember?"

Hallo did not answer.

"You did, anyhow. Well, this ought to teach you that a business man ought always to act so that people trust him. You haven't, you see. People know you're a liar and a cheat, and so they don't believe you even when you are telling the truth. You may have meant to do all the things you've promised me to-night, but how could I take a chance on you when I knew the truth about the way you've acted before? A reputation's a good thing – I've always heard that, and now I know it."

Dick chuckled, but Hallo made no sound of any sort. Dick could imagine, however, the workings of his mind, and he did not envy the helpless man in front of him. Neither was he sorry for him. If Hallo was in a bad way, he had himself to thank for it. Dick could respect him, in a way, for his dealings with the Servians and the whole conduct of the man in his relations with the Austrian authorities and the enemy. He might be a good patriot. All the things he had done in connection with the sale of supplies to the army and the attempts he had made to break up the Servian system of espionage might be perfectly legitimate.

Even though Dick was heart and soul on the Servian side, he could respect any sincerely patriotic Austrian or Hungarian. But he doubted whether Hallo was capable of being either sincere or patriotic; he had an idea that the man was a patriot simply because he saw a chance to make money out of his patriotism.

"He is in a bad way, though," Dick thought. "They'll blame him for all the things that have gone wrong, and if he has acted here the way he did in New York, they'll believe that he did it deliberately too. They won't give him the benefit of the doubt; they'll be sure he was a traitor, instead of just a fool, and he will suffer for it too."

Dick was keeping his pistol carefully concealed. Whenever anyone came in sight, to whom Hallo might have appealed for aid, he reminded him of the existence of the pistol by tickling his ribs with it. But very few people were abroad. It was late, and Dick was purposely choosing unfrequented streets.

For more than the first time Dick was deeply grateful for his excellent bump of locality, which his service with the Boy Scouts had done so much to develop. It was comparatively easy for him to follow the course he had planned, and he knew that with every step they were getting further from the heart of Semlin and nearer the boathouse which was his destination. There was every reason to suppose, too, that he would not have to handle Hallo single-handed much longer. Behind him, when he glanced back from time to time, the trail was plainly marked by the little scatterings of corn.

"I'm glad it's night time," he reflected, with a grin. "In daylight there would be birds after that corn, and it wouldn't serve as a trail for very long. But it's good fun; it's like a paper chase, or hare and hounds. Only this time the hare wants to be caught!"

Then he thought of Hallo, and decided that at least one of the hares wasn't anxious to be caught at all.

"Still he doesn't know what I'm doing, I guess," thought Dick, "There's no use in spoiling the pleasure of this little walk for him by telling him, either. He'll know soon enough, if I have any luck."

They were in open country by this time, with very few houses in sight. Suddenly Hallo broke out.

"Where are you taking me?" he cried, fearfully.

"Oh, you're beginning to recognize the route now, are you? Yes, we're going back to the place you came away from in such a hurry not so very long ago!"

"You were there!" said Hallo; suddenly, "I thought I knew your voice – in the boathouse! That was you who came in the launch?"

"I don't have to answer," said Dick. "Hurry along! You slow up when you talk. And your talk isn't interesting enough to make it worth while to delay."

"I – "

Whatever Hallo meant to say was never finished. For suddenly the ground shook, and there was a dreadful roar. A huge flash lit up the sky, and behind them bedlam seemed to break loose. There was a succession of reports, like repeated volleys of rifle fire, and sometimes a louder roar.

"There goes the arsenal, so you can quit worrying," said Dick. "Even if I let you go now, you couldn't prevent that, could you? Oh, I knew what you were driving at, all the time!"

CHAPTER XV

THE TABLES TURNED

But even Dick, for all the wild mood of anger that had held him since he had had Hallo in his power, had to consent to a halt now. If the Servians planned not only to inflict a severe blow on the Austrians by the destruction of war material, but to spread terror as well, they succeeded admirably. For there was not one explosion alone; there was a series of explosions. And fire spread from the arsenal, too.

"The shells are going off, you see," said Dick, a little awed. "They're exploding in all directions. I suppose there will be a good deal of damage. And those cartridges must be sending an awful lot of bullets around promiscuously."

"I don't think many people will be hurt," said Hallo. Like Dick, he was awed by the spectacle, and the terrible magnificence of it for the moment seemed to have driven from his mind all thought of anything but the explosion itself. "There are very few houses about the arsenal; they are mostly public buildings of one sort and another. It's not the sort of neighborhood people choose to live in. Even in time of peace there may be an accident in an arsenal at any moment – and just as bad an explosion as this one."

But then, suddenly, Hallo seemed to remember his position.

"You will pay for this!" he cried. "It is your doing, because if you had let me go I should have stopped that! You are in league with the Servian spies who have been working here for months, who planned the murder of the Archduke in Serajevo – "

"Why don't you say I killed him?" suggested Dick. "Forward march, again! The show is over!"

"Oh, your time will come – and you will cry to me for help then! The police only had suspicions before, but now they will have facts, and all the consuls and ambassadors in the world won't be able to help you! It won't be a matter for the police at all, my lad! It will be a court-martial that will try you."

"Perhaps. We shall see. Hello, what's this?"

Dick had just been thinking to himself that it was highly fortunate that they had passed the settled district to the northeast of Semlin before the explosion, since he could easily imagine the outpouring there must have been into the streets at that terrific sound. But now there was a sound of rushing feet, and around a corner, perhaps a quarter of a mile in front of them, a body of men appeared – troops, coming at the double quick.

"Here, this way!" said Dick, sharply.

He pointed to a clump of trees beside the road, and forced the reluctant Hallo to go in before him. The pistol was giving him fine support for it was very evident that Hallo did not mean to take chances. Dick did not know, as a matter of fact, whether he would be able to fire if the necessity arose. To shoot even Mike Hallo in cold blood, and when the man was helpless to all intents, was something he could not contemplate without a shudder.

In fact it was partly because Hallo was his enemy that he felt that he was likely to hesitate, and at a moment when hesitation was likely to be dangerous, if not fatal.

"I'd feel differently if I didn't have anything against him, personally," said Dick to himself. "As it is, I'd never be sure, if I shot him, whether I was doing it in self-defence or because it was a good chance to get even with him for the things he's done to me and to my family."

Fortunately, however, Hallo did not put him to the test. Dick realized that it was a dangerous minute. The seconds that elapsed while the soldiers were passing in the road were the longest he had ever spent. A single shout from Hallo would have settled matters. In such times, and with a reminder of the dangers of the situation such as the destruction of the arsenal, there would have been an immediate investigation, and, whatever happened to Hallo himself, Dick would be in a bad case, and he fully realized his situation.

Dick allowed plenty of time for the soldiers to pass. It did not take long, as a matter of fact, and he decided that there could have been only a small detachment, not more than a company of infantry probably. Hallo might have told him that there were comparatively few troops in Semlin, and that the greater part of the Austrian forces along the border were placed at two points, Schabatz, on the Save, and Losnitza, on the Drina, since it was at those two points that the invasion of Servia was to be begun, according to the plan of the Austrian General Staff.

The bombardment of Belgrade was not intended to cover a subsequent attack, but to serve as a feint, in the hope that a large number of Servian troops would be retained for the defense of the capital. Belgrade was of no use to the Austrians. By holding Semlin they could cut the railway and had every advantage that the occupation of Belgrade could have given them, except the sentimental value of having possession of the enemy's capital. Later in the war the Austrians were to make the grave mistake of occupying Belgrade for just such sentimental reasons, and the mistake was to be proved by the sacrifice of an army.

"All right, we can go back to the road again," said Dick, when he had allowed more than enough time for a rear guard to pass. "Your friends have held us up. See if you can't move a little faster to make up for the delay!" and he prodded him with his revolver for emphasis.

Dick had scattered his corn steadily and now, as they went back to the road, he kicked the kernels that marked their digression aside, since he knew that Stepan and the others, if they were following, would only waste time by following the detour into the woods. He had brought a plentiful supply, and he was glad of it, since he was traveling further with Hallo than he had thought it at all likely that he could. For some time he had been listening eagerly for some indication that Stepan and his friends were approaching, but there had been none. He was not ready to be worried about them yet, however dangerous as he knew their work had been, since it was easy to imagine a dozen trifling things that might have delayed them.

And yet he could think of more serious things, too. There might have been a premature explosion of the mine, and he shuddered at the thought of what the fate of the Servians must have been if that was what had happened. Or they might have been caught as they emerged from the tunnel. Or – but he shook off such ideas. There was no reason yet to suppose that everything was not all right. And the important thing was to get Hallo to the boathouse. It was absolutely vital, now that Hallo knew about that refuge, and also the identity of his former office boy, that Hallo should not escape to use his knowledge, since he could do incalculable mischief to the cause that Dick had now made his own.

Hallo went along stumbling, groaning, growling. Finally Dick did begin to feel sorry for him. After all, the man was in bad condition. He had been painfully hurt by the crashing down of the big packing case, and his fright and escape through the water had weakened and tired him, even before that. Now he seemed to be in the last stages of exhaustion, and when he began to plead with Dick on account of his weariness, rather than with promises or threats, he was on the right track. Perhaps that feeling threw Dick off his guard for a moment. At any rate, when Hallo finally made his bid for freedom he chose the most, perhaps the only, opportune moment.

Dick had taken his eyes off him for a moment, and had loosened his hold on the butt of his automatic. And just then Hallo stopped suddenly, whipped back his foot, and tripped Dick neatly and successfully. Dick went down; before he could reach for the pistol, Hallo was on top of him. Exhausted though he was, Hallo outweighed Dick still as much as ever, and he was strong as well. Dick fought well, but the surprise had been complete. As he reached for the pistol, Hallo seized his arm and in a moment was twisting it around behind his back in a cruel hammer lock hold – that deadliest of wrestling grips, that means a broken arm for the victim unless he yields. The struggle was over in a moment, and the positions were now completely reversed.