Rollife was busy with his repairs on the aerials. Dowd was down in the engine room, or so Ruth supposed, and neither seemed suspicious of any further happening that would injure them. Rather, they considered themselves in full charge of a steamship that was in no actual or present danger.
Ruth Fielding’s mental vision saw more clearly. There was something else coming—something far more tragic than anything that had thus far occurred.
There might be, hidden somewhere in the cargo-holds, time-bombs set to explode at a given moment. Her imagination was by no means running away with her when she visioned such a possibility.
Surely there was something still to happen to theAdmiral Pekhard.If not, why then all the scurry to get away from the ship, the conspirators themselves included in the stampede?
Or had the ship’s position been made known to a German submarine and would the U-boat soon appear to torpedo the British craft? This was not so far-fetched an idea. Only, the young woman was pretty sure that the explosion aboard theAdmiral Pekhardhad been advanced in time because of her own suspicions and the attempt she had made to get Mr. Dowd to investigate matters which the conspirators did not wish revealed.
Rollife had taken the lantern and Dowd had gone in search of another, Ruth presumed. By and by she began to wonder what was engaging the first officer’s attention for so long, and she went to the engine-room hatch. Her small electric torch showed her the way.
To her amazement—and not a little to her fear at first—Ruth found the first officer lying upon the engine-room ladder. He was wet from head to foot, his turban of bandages had come off, displaying a bleeding scalp wound, and he was panting for breath.
“What has happened to you, Mr. Dowd?” she cried. “Did you fall into the water?”
“I dived into it,” explained Dowd, grinning faintly. “That water in the fireroom didn’t look right to me. I found the seacocks below, there. Two were open, as I suspected.”
“Oh!”
“It was a deliberate attempt to scare us—and it succeeded. I shut off the cocks. This compartment could be pumped out if we had the men. Of course, the steam pumps can’t be used. We have no donkey engine on deck. All the machinery is down there, half under water.
“There must have been more than Dykman and that man you saw talking to Miss Lentz, in the plot. Another man in the stoker-crew, perhaps. He flung a bomb into one of the furnaces after opening the seacocks. It was a well laid plot, Miss Fielding.”
“Yes, I know,” she said hastily. “But to what end?”
“How’s that?”
“What was the final consideration? Why was this done? They must have known the ship would not sink. Then, what did they do all this for?”
“Why—by Jove!” gasped Dowd, “I had not thought of that, Miss Fielding.”
He crept up the ladder and stood upon the deck, the water running from the garments that clung closely to his limbs and body.
“Doesn’t it seem reasonable,” she asked, “that the conspirators, whoever they were, should have some object rather than the simple desertion of a vessel that was not likely to sink?”
“It would seem so,” he admitted, and his tone betrayed as much anxiety as she felt herself.
At the moment a shout from Rollife, the radio man, aroused them.
“I’ve found it!” he cried.
They went toward the radio room. He was busy in the light of the lantern on the roof of the house. He had tools and a small plumber’s stove that he had found. He turned on the blast of the stove and began to weld certain wires.
“Can you fix it?” Dowd asked quietly.
“You bet I can, Mr. Dowd!” declared Rollife. “In half an hour I’ll have the sparks shooting from those points up there. You watch.”
Ruth looked at Mr. Dowd. Her unspoken question was: “Shall we take him into our confidence? Shall we tell him our fears?”
Before the first officer could answer her unspoken inquiry Ruth’s sharp eyes glimpsed a light over his shoulder. It was an intermittent sparkle, and it was low down on the water. She remembered then the light she had seen for a moment when she had first come on deck after learning that the ship was abandoned.
“What is that?” she whispered, pointing.
Dowd wheeled to look. Instantly she saw by the light of her torch that he stiffened and his head came up. He gazed off across the water for quite two minutes. Then he said:
“It is a light in a small boat I believe. At first I thought it might be a submarine. But I do notbelieve a submarine would show anything less than a searchlight in traveling on the surface at night.”
“Oh! Who can it be?” murmured Ruth.
“You put a hard question, Miss Fielding. Surely it cannot be our friends coming back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a boat sent by Captain Hastings to make sure that nobody was left on the steamship.”
“Do you consider that likely?” she asked.
“Well—no, I do not,” he admitted.
“Then you think it may be people who have not our interest at heart?” was her quick demand.
“I am afraid I can give you no encouragement. I cannot imagine Captain Hastings abandoning the ship without believing she would sink. In the darkness he must have got so far away that he would think she had gone down. He would be anxious, you understand, to get his crew and passengers to land.”
“Of course. I give him credit for being fairly sane,” she said.
“On the other hand, who would have any suspicion that the ship would not sink save those who had brought about the panic?”
“The Germans!” exclaimed the girl.
“Exactly. I believe,” said Dowd quietly, “that here come the men who caused the explosion inthe fire room and opened the seacocks. They purpose to take charge of theAdmiral Pekhard, of course. If they get aboard we shall be at their mercy.”
“Oh, can we stop them? Can we hold them off?” murmured Ruth.
“I do not know. I am not sure that it would be wise to offer fight. You see, we shall finally be at their mercy.”
“If we can’t beat them off!” Ruth exclaimed. “Haven’t you arms aboard?”
“My dear young lady——”
“Oh, don’t think of me!” Ruth cried. “Do just what you would do if I were not here. Wouldn’t you and the radio man fight them?”
“I think we could put up a pretty good fight,” admitted Dowd thoughtfully. “There are automatic pistols.”
“Bring one for me,” commanded Ruth. “I can shoot a pistol. Three of us might hold off a small boarding party, I should think.”
“If they mean us harm,” added Dowd.
“Make them lie off there and wait till morning so that we can see what they look like,” begged Ruth.
“That might be attempted.”
His lack of certainty rankled in the girl’s quick mind. She ejaculated:
“Surely we can try, Mr. Dowd! There is another thing:the deck guns! Had you thought of them?”
“My goodness, no!” admitted the first officer.
“If we could slue around one of those guns, a single shot might sink the boat off there. If they are enemies, I mean.”
“Now you have suggested something, Miss Fielding! Wait! Let me have your torch. I will take a look at the guns.”
He ran along the deck to the forward gun. After a minute there he ran back to the stern, but kept to the runway on the opposite side of the deck as he passed the girl of the Red Mill. She waited in great impatience for his return.
And when he came she saw that something was decidedly wrong. He wagged his head despairingly.
“No use,” he said. “Those fellows were sharper than one would think. The breech-block of each gun is missing.”
“That light is drawing close, Mr. Dowd!” Ruth exclaimed. “Get the pistols you spoke of—do!”
But first Dowd called to the radio man up above them: “Hi, Sparks, see that boat coming?”
“What boat?” demanded the other, stopping his work for the moment. Then he saw the light. “Holy heavens! what’s that?”
“One of the boats coming back—and not with friends,” said Dowd.
“Let me get these wires welded and I’ll show ’em!” rejoined Rollife. “I’ll send a call——”
At the moment the sudden explosion of a motor engine exhaust startled them. It was no rowboat advancing toward theAdmiral Pekhard. Probably its crew had been rowing quietly so as not to startle those left aboard the ship.
“The pistols, Mr. Dowd!” begged Ruth again.
The first officer departed on a run. Rollife kept at his work with a running commentary of his opinion of the scoundrels who were approaching. Suddenly a rifle rang out from the coming launch.
“Ahoy! Ahoy the steamer!” shouted a voice. “We see your light, and we’ll shoot at it if you don’t douse it. Quick, now!”
Another rifle bullet whistled over the head of the radio man. Ruth removed her thumb from the electric torch switch instantly. But Rollife refused at first to be driven.
The next moment, however, a bullet crashed into the lantern on the roof of the radio house. The flame was snuffed out and the radio man was feign to slide down from his exposed position.
Dowd came running from the cabin with the pistols. He gave one to Ruth and another to Rollife. The latter stepped out from the shelter of the house and drew bead on the lamp in the approaching launch. Ruth heard the chatter ofthe weapon’s hammer—but not a shot was fired!
“Great guns, Dowd!” shouted the radio man, exasperated. “This gat isn’t loaded.”
“Neither is mine!” exclaimed Ruth, who had made a quick examination in the darkness.
“Oh, my soul!” groaned the first officer. “I got the wrong weapons!”
“And no more clips of cartridges? Well, you——”
There was no use finishing his opinion of Dowd’s uselessness. The motor boat shot alongside under increased speed. There was a slanting bump, a grappling iron flew over the rail and caught, and the next moment a man swarmed up the rope, threw his leg over the rail, and then his head and face appeared.
Ruth in her excitement pressed the switch of her electric torch. The ray of light shot almost directly into the eyes of the first boarder. He was the flaxen-haired man—the man she believed she had seen hiding in the small motor boat before the explosion in the steamer’s fire room.
It was too late then for Mr. Dowd to correct his mistake. In the dark he had gone to the wrong closet in the captain’s chart room. There were loaded small arms of several kinds in one closet, while in the other were stored spare arms that were not oiled and loaded and ready for use.
The flaxen-haired man swarmed over the rail. He had a pistol in his hand. A moment later another man came up the ladder that had been put over the rail when the captain’s launch was manned for departure. This second man bore a powerful electric lamp.
“Drop that torch and your guns!” he commanded sharply. “Put up your hands!”
“It’s Dykman!” muttered Mr. Dowd. “The cut-throat villain!”
But he obeyed the command. So did Rollife. And could Ruth Fielding do otherwise? They stood in line with their hands in the air, palmsoutward. Dykman crossed the deck with his lamp warily, while the flaxen-haired man held the three under the muzzle of his pistol.
“What do you mean by such actions, Dykman?” demanded Dowd angrily.
“I’ll let you guess that, old man,” said the other. “But I advise you to do your guessing to yourself. We are in no mood to listen to you.”
Then he shot a question at the radio man: “Did you get those wires fixed?”
“Hanged if I don’t wish I hadn’t touched ’em,” growled the radio man.
“You’ve sent no message, then?”
Rollife shook his head.
“All right. Krueger!” shouted Dykman, who seemed to be in command of the traitors.
“I thought so!” muttered Rollife. “That squarehead never did look right to me.”
Several other men as well as Krueger came up the ladder. Their dress proclaimed them seamen or stokers. Ruth wondered if Miss Lentz was with them.
She began to feel fearful for herself. What would these rough men do, now they had possession of the ship? And what would they do to her? That was the principal query in her mind. Dykman merely patted the pockets of Dowd and Rollife to make sure they had no other arms. He gave Ruth slight attention at the moment.
“I’ll have to lock you fellows in a stateroom,” Dykman said coolly. “Can’t have you fooling around the ship. You’ll both be taken home in time and held as war prisoners.”
“By ‘home’ I suppose you mean Germany!” snorted Rollife.
“That is exactly what I mean.”
“But man!” exclaimed Dowd, “you don’t expect to get this ship through the blockade? And you’ve got to repair the damage your explosion did, too.”
“Don’t worry,” grinned Dykman. “She’s not damaged much. We opened seacocks——”
“Oh, yes, I found that out,” admitted Dowd. “And I closed them.”
“Thanks,” said the other coolly. “So much trouble saved us. We’ll get to work at the pumps. We ought to be clear of the water by morning. Only one boiler is injured. We can hobble along with the use of the other boilers, I think.”
“Man, but you have the brass!” exclaimed Dowd. “Some of these destroyers will catch you, sure.”
“We’ll see about that,” grumbled Dykman. “We’ll put you two men where you will be able to do no harm, at least.”
“And Miss Fielding?” questioned Dowd quickly. “You will see that she comes to no harm, Mr. Dykman?”
“She is rather an awkward prisoner, considering theuse we intend to make of theAdmiral Pekhard. Women will be much in the way, I assure you.”
“But there is Miss Lentz,” murmured Ruth.
“Miss Lentz? She is not here. She went in the captain’s boat,” the sub-officer said shortly. “I wish you had gone with her.”
“It was your fault I did not,” said Ruth boldly.
“Perhaps,” admitted the German. “But necessity knows no law, Miss Fielding. It was said you knew too much—or suspected too much. I dislike making a military prisoner of a woman. But, as I said before, necessity knows no law. You and Dowd and Rollife had to be separated from Captain Hastings and the rest of them. There are only a few of us—at present,” he added.
“And how the deuce do you expect to augment your crew?” demanded the chief officer. “You can’t work this ship with so few hands. And you’ve got none of the engineer’s crew.”
“I am something of an engineer myself, Mr. Dowd,” returned the other, smiling with a satisfied air. “We shall have proper assistance before long.” He hailed Krueger, who had climbed to the roof of the radio house. “Is everything all right?”
“Will be shortly, Mr. Boldig,” said the assistant radio man.
Ruth started. Then “Dykman” was “Boldig,” whose name she had formerly heard mentioned between Irma Lentz and the flaxen-haired man. The man with two names turned upon Ruth.
“You had better go immediately to your own room, Miss Fielding,” he said respectfully. “I shall be obliged to lock you in, as I shall Mr. Dowd and Rollife here. I assure you all,” he added significantly, “that it is much against my will that you remain prisoners. I would much rather you had all three gone with the captain.
“By the way, Dowd, Captain Hastings was told you were in command of this small motor launch. I am afraid you will have much to explain, later. And you, too, Rollife.”
Rollife only growled in reply and Dowd said nothing. When they started aft with Boldig, Ruth followed. She knew it was useless to object to any plan the German might have in mind.
Before they left the deck she heard the spark sputtering at the top of the radio mast. Krueger was at the instrument, and without doubt he was sending a call to friends somewhere on the ocean. It would be no S O S for help in the Continental code, but in a German code, she was sure.
The jar and thump of the pumps already resounded through the ship. By the light of Boldig’s electric lamp they went below to the cabin. Ruth again produced her own torch and foundher way to her stateroom, while Dowd and Rollife went the other way.
Alone once again, the girl of the Red Mill gave her mind up to a thorough and searching examination of the situation, and especially her own position.
She was the single woman with and in the power of a gang of men who were not only desperate, but who were of a race whose treatment of women prisoners had filled the whole civilized world with scorn and loathing. Ruth wished heartily that Irma Lentz had come back with the motor boat. She would have felt safer if Miss Lentz had been of the party.
Ruth realized that neither Dowd or Rollife could come to her help if she had need of them. They would be locked in their rooms at so great a distance from hers that they could not even hear her if she screamed!
One thing she might do. She hastily secured the key that was in the outside of the stateroom lock and locked the door from the inside. Scarcely had she done this when Boldig came along the corridor. He rapped on her door; then coolly tried the knob.
“Unlock the door and give me the key, Miss Fielding,” he commanded. “I will lock you in from outside and carry the key myself. Nobody will disturb you.”
“No, Mr. Boldig. I shall feel safer if I keep the key,” said Ruth firmly.
“Come, now! No foolishness!” he said angrily. “Do as you are told.”
“No. I shall keep the key,” she repeated.
“Why, you—well,” and he laughed shortly, “I will make sure that you stay in there, my lady.”
He went hastily away. Ruth waited in some trepidation. She did not know what would next happen. She wished heartily that she had a loaded weapon. She certainly would have used it had need arisen.
Soon Boldig was back, and he proceeded without another word to her to nail fast the stateroom door as he had nailed the radio room door. When this was completed to his satisfaction, he said bitterly:
“If we feed you at all, Miss Fielding, it will have to be through the port.Au revoir!”
It was with vast relief that Ruth heard him depart. The thought of food—or the lack of it—did not at present trouble her mind.
The steady thump and rattle of the pumps by which the fireroom was being cleared of water continued to sound in her ears. She laid aside her coat and hat, for the night was warm. She flashed the pocket lamp upon the face of her traveling clock. It was already nearly midnight.
The thought of sleep was repugnant to her.How could she close her eyes when she did not know what the morning might bring forth? It was not wholly that she feared personal harm. Not that so much. But there was, she felt, a conspiracy on foot that might do much harm to the Allied cause.
These Germans had played a shrewd game to get possession of theAdmiral Pekhard. It was not for the purpose of sinking the transport ship that they had brought about her abandonment. No, indeed!
As Boldig—the erstwhile “Dykman”—had intimated, nothing like destroying the steamship was the intention of the plotters. The rascals had been very careful not to injure seriously the engines or any other part of the ship’s mechanism.
With the fireroom suddenly filling with water after the explosion, the dampened fires caused such a volume of steam that it was no wonder the engineer and his force were driven from their stations. As long as the panic-stricken passengers and terrified crew remained aboard theAdmiral Pekhard, undoubtedly it appeared that a hole had been blown through the outer skin of the ship and that she was on the verge of sinking.
Had Mr. Dowd been on deck and in possession of his senses, Ruth was quite sure that the panic would have been stayed. Captain Hastings was not a big enough man to handle such a situationas the German plotters had brought about. He lost his head completely, although he doubtless had remained on the ship’s deck until every other soul (as he supposed) was in the small boats.
The very character of the pompous little skipper had made the success of the Hun plot possible. All that was passed now, however. Nothing could be done to avert the successful termination of the conspiracy. Or so it seemed to the girl of the Red Mill, sitting alone and in the darkness of her small stateroom.
After a time she rose and pushed back the blind at her port. She opened the thick, oval glass window, which was pivoted. She saw the phosphorescent waves slowly marching past the rolling steamship.
Suddenly she heard voices. They were of two men talking near the rail and near her window as well. One was Boldig. He said in German:
“You have shown yourself to be a good deal of a coward, Guelph. Always fearful of disaster! Look you: If youwillthat nothing shall balk us, no disaster will arrive. It is thewillof the German people that will make them in the end the victors in this war. Remember that, Guelph.”
The other muttered something about taking unnecessary chances. Boldig at once declared:
“No chances. Krueger will pick up the U-714. Have no fear. She is one of the newest type of cruiser-submarines. She carries the crew arranged to man thisAdmiral Pekhard. Ha, we will make the Englanders gnash their teeth in rage!”
“We shall hope so,” said the other man. Ruth thought it must be the flaxen-haired fellow; but of this she could not be sure.
“This will be one of our greatest coups,” went on Boldig. “The cargo awaits us in a friendly port—you know where. We will sail from thence to carry supplies to the submarines that will be sent from time to time from the Belgian bases. She shall be a ‘mother ship’ indeed, and, lurking out of the lanes of travel, will make long submarine voyages possible.
“Ah, we will do much with this old tub of a steamer to increase the despair of the enemy. Rejoice, Guelph! We shall receive honor and much gold for this.”
“Huh!” growled the other, “gold is good, I grant you.”
Aside from the two men he had seen shot down upon the after deck of the Zeppelin, Tom Cameron soon made out that the airplane attack upon the larger airship must have done other damage. He was glad if this was so. The regrettable fact that he had killed two men would be offset, in his mind, if the bullets of the machine gun had made difficult the sailing of the Zeppelin to London.
He had seen the chipped and dented rail and deck across which the hail of machine-gun bullets had swept. He hoped that there had been done some injury of greater moment than these marks betrayed. And he believed that there was such injury.
If not, why was the Zeppelin limping along the airways so slowly through the fog? The commander of the great machine had been called to the forward deck, and that not merely for the conning of the ship on its course, Tom was sure.Suppose he had been the means, after all, of crippling the Zeppelin?
The thought filled the young American’s heart with delight. Much as he was depressed by the death of Ralph Stillinger, the American ace, Tom could not fail to be overjoyed at the thought of setting the Zeppelin back in this attempt to reach England.
The Germans might have to return to their base for repairs. Of course, Tom was a prisoner, and there was not a chance of his getting away; still, he could feel delight because of this possibility that roweled his mind.
He tried to peer through the thick glass of the window in the forward closet of the Zeppelin cabin. Mistily he saw the hairy-coated Germans moving about on the forward deck. He could not recognize theober-leutnantwho seemed to be in command of the ship; but he saw that several of the men were at work repairing some of the wire stays that had been broken.
As the fog partially cleared for a moment, he was enabled to make out a box of a house far forward on this first deck. It was probably where the steering gear was located. Just where the motors and engines were boxed he did not know. A fellow in that pilot-house—if such it was—might do something of moment, he told himself. If he could once get there, Tom Cameron thought,he would make it impossible for the Zeppelin ever to reach England, unless it drifted there by accident.
It was a rather dispiriting situation, however, to be locked in this narrow closet. He had already tried the door and found that it was secure. Besides, anybody on the deck, by coming close to the window, could look in and see if he was still imprisoned.
An hour passed, then another. The Zeppelin’s speed was not increased, nor did he see the commander in all the time.
He believed the airship must have drifted out over the sea.
Although the cabin arrangements on the Zeppelin made the place where Tom Cameron was confined almost soundproof, the jar and rumble of the ship’s powerful motors were audible. Now there grew upon his hearing another sound. It was a note deeper than that of the motors, and of an organ-like timber. A continuous current of noise, rather pleasant than otherwise, was this new sound. He could not at first understand what it meant.
The fog was still thick about the airship. He believed they had descended several thousand feet. It was now close to mid-forenoon, and as a usual thing the fog would have disappeared by this hour over the land.
It must be that the Zeppelin had reached the sea. Whatever material injury she had suffered, the commander had by no means given up his intention of following out his orders to reach the English coast.
It was at this point in his ruminations that Tom suddenly became possessed of a new idea—an explanation of the organ-like sound he heard. It was the surf on the coast! The ship must be drifting over the French coastline, and the sound of the surf breaking on the rocks was the sound he heard.
Tom possessed a good memory, and he had not been studying maps of the Western Front daily for nothing. He knew, very well indeed, the country over which he had flown with poor Ralph Stillinger.
He had located to a nicety the spot where they mounted into the fog-cloud to escape the German pursuit-planes. Then had come the discovery of the Zeppelin beneath, and the catastrophe that had followed.
The Zeppelin had been sailing seaward, and was near the coast at the time Tom had so thrillingly boarded it; and he was sure that if it had changed its course, this change had been to the southwestward. It was following the French coast, rather than drifting over Belgium.
These ruminations were scarcely to the point,however; Tom desired to do something, not to remain inactive.
But the time did not seem propitious. He dared not attempt breaking out of his prison. And although he still had his automatic pistol, he would be foolish to try to fight this whole German crew.
He was startled from his reverie by the unlocking of the door and the odor of warm food. Nor was it “bully beef” or beans, the two staples that gladden the hearts of the American soldier.
A meek-looking German private entered with a steaming tureen of ragout, or stew, a plate of dark bread, and a mug of hot drink. He bowed to Tom very ceremoniously and placed the tray on the couch.
“Der gomblements of der commander,” he said, gutturally, and backed out of the narrow doorway.
“He’s all right, your commander!” exclaimed Tom impulsively, making for the fare with all the zest of good appetite.
The German grinned, and faded out. He closed the door softly. Tom had already dipped into the stew and found it excellent (and of rabbit) before it crossed his mind that he had not heard the key click in the lock of the door.
He stopped eating to listen. He heard nothing from the outer cabin.
“But that grinning, simple-looking Heinie may not be as foolish as he appears. The fellow may have left the door unlocked to trap me,” Tom muttered.
He continued to eat the plentiful meal furnished him, while he tried to think the situation out to a reasonable conclusion. Had the German forgotten to lock the door? Or was it a scheme to trap him? It already mystified Tom why he had not been deprived of his pistol. He could not understand such carelessness. Was the commander of the Zeppelin so confident that he was both harmless and helpless?
He remembered that when he was first seized, upon leaping aboard the aircraft, his captors had shown a strong desire to throw him off the ship. The commander’s opportune arrival had undoubtedly saved him.
And here they were feeding him, and treating him very nicely indeed! It puzzled Tom, if it did not actually breed suspicion in his mind.
“But then you can’t trust these Huns,” he told himself. “Maybe that chap is out there now waiting to shoot me if I try to slip out of this little office.”
He was not contented to let this question remain in the air. Tom was of that type of young American who dares. He was ready to take a chance.
Besides, he had in his heart that desire, already set forth, to do something to halt the Zeppelin raid over London. And he was serious in this belief that it was possible for him to do something for the Allied cause in memory of the brave American ace who had been killed almost at his side.
When he had finished the meal he glanced forward through the narrow window. At the moment there was nobody in sight on the forward deck. Tom slid along the couch to the door. He put a tentative hand on the knob.
He turned the knob very slowly with his left hand. As Tom sat upon the end of the couch he would be behind the door when he opened it. The weapon the commander of the Zeppelin had neglected to take from him was in his right hand, and ready for use.
He gently drew the door toward him. As he had supposed, it was not locked. When it was ajar he waited for what might follow.
Then, through the aperture at the back of the door, he had a view of the narrow cabin to its very end. Sufficient light entered through the several windows of clouded glass to show him that there was nobody in sight. Not even the private who had brought his lunch had lingered here.
Rising swiftly and with the pistol ready in his hand, the young American stepped out of the closet in which he had been confined. There was a small German clock screwed to the wall. It was now almost noon.
Crouching, ready to leap or run as the case might need, Tom approached the other end of the cabin. There he could see through the dim pane of the door, gaining a view of the afterdeck.
The mystery of the absence of all life forward was instantly explained. More than a dozen of the crew and officers were gathered on the afterdeck. They stood in a row along the deck, their heads bared, while theober-leutnantread from a book.
Tom realized almost at once what the scene meant, and he shrank back from the door. The crew could not hear, of course, the words the officer pronounced; but they were all probably familiar with the service for the dead in the Prayer Book.
Somehow the ceremony affected Tom Cameron strongly. At the feet of the row of men were laid two bodies lashed in a covering, or shroud. They were the men mowed down by the machine gun which Tom himself had manipulated from the American airplane.
The Germans are sentimentalists, it must be confessed. They would take time on their way to raid an enemy city from the air in a most cowardly fashion, to read the burial service over their comrades.
For the airship was over the sea now, and, asthough from the deck of a sailing ship, the dead bodies could be slid into the water. But the height from which they would fall was much greater than on any ocean vessel.
The book was closed. Two bearers at the head and two at the feet of each corpse raised them on narrow stretchers, the foot-ends of which were rested upon the rail. A gesture from the officer, and the stretchers were tipped. The bodies slid quietly over the rail and disappeared.
The officer put the Prayer Book in his pocket and adjusted his helmet and goggles. The men with him followed suit. He dismissed them, and almost at once the throbbing of the motors was increased.
Tom Cameron ran back to the closet and shut himself in. He felt sure the commander would come through the cabin to the forward deck. However, the German did not try the knob of the closet door.
Tom saw him pass along the deck to the pilot house, facing the stiff gale. His garments blew about him furiously, and it seemed that the wind had suddenly increased in violence.
The course of the airship was changed. Tom knew that, for the next time a German passed along the deck he saw that his coat-tails flapped sideways. The Zeppelin was being steered across the course of the gale.
If he could only get to the steering gear and do something to it—wreck it in some way, at least, put it out of commission for a while. What would happen to him did not matter. Tom Cameron had been taking chances for some time.
He could feel the Zeppelin stagger under the beating of the fierce gale. There was a black cloud just ahead of the flying craft. Suddenly this cloud was striped again and again with yellow lightning.
Then how it did rain! The downpour slanted across the airship, beating in waves, like those of a troubled sea, against the cabin framework. Tom felt the whole structure rock and tremble.
He felt that the ship was rising. The commander purposed to get above this electric storm. Again and again the lightning flashed. It ran along the wires, limning each stay luridly.
In addition Tom began to feel the creeping cold of the higher atmosphere searching through his clothing. He buttoned his leather coat and looked about for something of additional warmth. The cold was seeping right into the closet around the window frame.
Then it was that Tom found the blanket. He lifted the cushion on the bench by chance, and there it was, neatly folded. This closet must be used at times for a sleeping place.
He could barely see what he was about, for ithad grown black outside. Only the recurrent flashes of lightning illuminated the scene. And that scene, when he stared through the window, was wild indeed.
Tom put on his helmet and the goggles fastened thereto and wrapped himself in the blanket. He lay down with his head close to the window. Slowly the Zeppelin was rising above the tempest. By and by the last whisps of the storm-cloud disappeared; but the gale still thundered through the wire stays of the ship and buffeted the great envelope above the swinging cabin and bridges.
“Such a craft might be easily torn to pieces by the wind!” The thought was not cheering, and Tom put it aside as he did all other depressing ideas.
It seemed to him that he had already gone through so much that his life was charmed. At least, he never felt less fear than he did at the present time.
The sharp gale continued. The Zeppelin had risen much higher, but it could not get above the wind-storm. Although it may have been steering to a nicety, he was sure that the huge craft was drifting off her course to a considerable degree.
After a couple of hours the commander of the Zeppelin came back from the pilot-house. He saw Tom’s face pressed close to the window and waved his hand.
When he entered the cabin Tom slipped back to the door and opened it a narrow crack. Theober-leutnantwent right through the cabin and disappeared.
Was the time ripe for Tom to carry out the scheme which had been slowly forming in his mind? Was the moment propitious?
The young American hesitated. It meant peril—perhaps death—for him, whether he succeeded or failed. He knew that well enough. Such an attempt as he purposed might only be bred of desperation.
He tore off the helmet and goggles which had masked him. He rolled the blanket and laid it along the bench as his own body had lain. On to the end of the roll next the window he pulled the helmet and arranged the goggles so that a glance through the window would show a man lying apparently asleep on the cushioned bench.
Then he tied a handkerchief of khaki color over his head and prepared to steal out of the closet, his pistol in his hand.
Youth is fain to be reckless, but there was no lack of reasoning behind Tom Cameron’s intention.
He was a prisoner on this airship which was bound on a raid over London. If the Zeppelin was not brought down and wrecked on English soil, she would return to her base and Tom would be sent to a German internment camp for the duration of the war.
Imprisonment by the Hun was not a desirable fate to contemplate. If the Zeppelin was brought down during the raid over London, he would very likely be killed in its fall. He might as well risk death now, and perhaps in doing so deliver a stroke that would make this raid impossible.
He slipped out of the closet in which he had been confined and closed the door behind him. He ran quickly to the after door of the long cabin, which he had previously seen could be fastened upon the inside by a bolt. He shot this bolt, andthen ran forward again and opened the door to the deck.
The wind almost took his breath. He was obliged to force the door shut again with his shoulder, and stood panting to recover himself. There was some considerable risk in facing the gale outside there.
It was impressed upon his mind more clearly now what it would mean if the Zeppelin could no longer be steered. This gale would sweep the airship down the English Channel and directly out into the Atlantic!
As this thought smoldered in his mind, others took fire from it. He faced a desperate venture.
If he carried through his purpose, with the Germans manning this airship he would be swept to a lingering but almost certain death.
The airship could not keep afloat for many hours. It took a deal of petrol to drive the huge machine from its base to England and back again. The store of fuel must be exhausted in a comparatively short time, and the Zeppelin would slowly settle to the surface of the sea.
Under these conditions he was pretty sure to be drowned, even if the Germans did not kill him immediately. He thought of his sister Helen—of his father—of Ruth Fielding. Already, perhaps, the loss of Ralph Stillinger and the airplane was known behind the French and Britishlines. Helen must learn of the catastrophe in time. Ruth might hear of the wreck of the airplane before she sailed for home.
Thought of the girl of the Red Mill well nigh unmanned Tom Cameron for a moment. To attempt to carry through the scheme he had plotted in his mind was, very likely, hastening his own death. Had he a right to do this?
It was a hard question to decide. Personal fear did not enter into the matter at all. The question was whether he owed his first duty to his family and Ruth or to the cause which he and every other right-thinking American had subscribed to when the United States got into this World War.
That was the point! Tom Cameron sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and again opened the door which gave egress to the forward deck of the German airship.
He pulled the door shut and breasted the cutting wind that rocked the airship as though she were in a heavy sea. He scrambled somehow along the deck to the pilot-house. There was a square of the same clouded glass in the door of this room. Through it he saw the shadow of a man with a row of instruments before him as well as several levers under his hand.
Tom had very little idea regarding the exact use of either the levers or the instruments. But he knew that he could put the Zeppelin out of commissionwith a few smashing blows if once he could get this man out of the way.
This whole forward part of the ship seemed deserted save for the man inside the room. Of course, the helmsman, or whatever he was called, must be in communication with all other parts of the great aircraft. If Tom would put his determination into practice he must overcome this man—and that quickly.
He opened the door. The man was aware of his presence, for the roar of the wind and the throbbing of the motors immediately reached the German’s ears more acutely. Tom saw him turn his head to look over his shoulder.
The young American had gripped his pistol by the barrel. He raised it and with all his force brought the weapon’s butt down on the padded helmet the man wore. Again and again he struck, while the fellow wheeled about and tried to grapple with him.
Tom broke the German’s goggles and the face before him was at once bathed in blood. Again and again he struck. The man sunk to his knees—then supinely to the deck, lying across the threshold of the room.
The American strode over him and looked swiftly about the hut. In a corner was fastened an iron bar. He seized it, and with repeated blows smashed the clock-faces and more delicateinstruments, as well as beating the levers into a twisted wreck.
The Zeppelin lurched sideways, rolled, and then righted itself. But it lost headway and Tom felt sure that it would drift now at the mercy of the furious gale. He had accomplished his purpose.
But he had the result of his act to face. The other members of the crew of the Zeppelin would be warned of the catastrophe almost immediately. They would soon break through the door of the cabin and reach the forward deck.
He stepped out of the wrecked hut and glanced back. Already the roar of the motors was subsiding. He surely had put the whole works out of commission.
Tom scrambled around the pilot-house into the extreme bow of the craft. Here was a waist-high bin, or storage box, with a hinged cover. He opened it and looked in. It seemed roomy, and there were only some cans and boxes in the receptacle. In a flash he jumped in, lowered the cover, and crouched there in the darkness.
What went on after that he could neither see nor hear. But he could feel the pitching and rolling of the damaged Zeppelin! He knew, too, by that peculiar sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach that attends such a swift passage downward, that the ship was rapidly falling.
This lasted only for a few moments. Then the airship found a steadier keel. It had not begun to spin as a biplane or a monoplane would have done. In some way her descent had been stopped and her balance recovered. But her motors had stopped entirely, and that meant that the wind was driving her as it pleased.
With the cessation of the motors his ear became tuned to other sounds—the shrieking of the wind through the stays and the thumping of its blasts upon the elephant-like envelope. Nor was the passage the craft made a smooth one.
Now and again it pitched as though about to dive into the sea. This sea was roaring, too—a monotone of sound that could not be mistaken. The aircraft was at the mercy of the elements.
He crouched in the box, quite ready to spring up and empty his pistol into the faces of any of his enemies who lifted the cover. But for some reason they did not track him here.
It could not be possible that they were long mystified as to who had done the deed. The figure he had laid upon the bench in the little room at the end of the closet would not have long led them astray. He had brought about the disaster and the thought of it delighted him.
No matter what finally became of him, he had stopped this Zeppelin from ever reaching the English shore! There was one cruel raid over London haltedin the very beginning. He could have shouted aloud in his delight.
He thrust up the heavy cover of the box and cocked his ear to listen for near-by sounds. There was considerable hammering and boisterous talk going on, the sound of which he caught from moment to moment. But it was mostly smothered in the roar of the waves and the shrieking of the wind.
They were very near the surface of the boisterous sea. He heard the bursting of a wave below the airship and the spray of it, tossed high in the air, swept across the structure and showered him as he crouched under the open box lid. In a minute or two now, the Zeppelin would be a hopeless wreck.
It came, indeed, more quickly than he had apprehended. There was a sudden dip, and the craft was swerved half around with a mighty wrench of parting stays and superstructure. A wave dashed completely over the platform. He shut the cover of the box to keep out the water.
The next few minutes were indeed disastrous ones. He was in a sorry situation. He did not know what was happening to the other castaways, but he felt and heard the frame of the great airship being wrenched to pieces by the ravenous sea.
The envelope boomed and tore at the frame forfreedom. At last it must have been wrenched free by the wind, and the sound of its booming and clashing gradually drifted away. The box he was in rocked and pitched like a small boat in the sea. He ventured to look out again, clearing his eyes of the salt spray.
It was already evening. There was a lurid light upon the tossing waves. Near him was a mass of twisted framework and a barge-like hulk that rode high. Upon it he saw clinging several wind-swept figures.
Then the sea tore the bow of the forward deck of the Zeppelin entirely free from the rest of the structure. Tom Cameron went drifting off to leeward in his uncertain refuge.
The tumbling sea separated him from the Germans. Perhaps it was as well.
As his raft rose upon a wave he looked back into the deep trough and saw the remains of the airship turning slowly, around and around, as though being drawn down into the vortex of a whirlpool. His lighter craft shot downward into the next valley, and that was the last glimpse Tom had of the wrecked Zeppelin and its crew.
Ruth Fielding did not close her eyes all that trying night. Morning found her as wakeful in her stateroom as when she had been nailed into it by Boldig, the leader of the German mutineers.
The situation of theAdmiral Pekhardwas not difficult; and although she was without steerage-way she was in no danger. There was a heavy swell on from a storm that had passed somewhere to the northward; but the night remained quite calm, if dark.
The thumping of the pumps continued until dawn. Then the water was evidently cleared from the fireroom, and the men could go to work cleaning the grates and making ready to lay new fires in all but the damaged boiler.
There was much to do about the engine, however, to delay the putting of the ship under steam. The water, rising as high as it had, had seeped into the machinery and must be wiped out and the parts thoroughly oiled.
Thus far the signals by radio had not been answered by the approach of the submarine that Boldig had reason to expect. As Ruth had heard him boast, the big German submarine, No. 714, must be lurking near, awaiting news of the British steamship from Brest.
The Germans had taken a big chance. Of course, the ship and the submersible might not meet at all. Instead, a patrol boat might hail theAdmiral Pekhard, or catch her wireless calls. The Germans would be in trouble then without doubt.
Of course they had the motor boat in which they had got away from the ship in the first place. They could pile into that and make for some port where they knew they had friends. There were such ports to the south, for Spain was not as successfully neutral as her government would have liked to be. German propaganda was active in that country.
Ruth was not in much fear at present as to her own treatment. The mutineers had their hands full. What would finally happen to her if the Germans carried their plans to fulfilment, was a question she dared not contemplate.
Dowd and Rollife she presumed would be removed to the submarine and taken back to Germany—if the submarine ever reached her base again. But there were no provisions on submarines,she very well knew, for women—prisoners or otherwise.
This uncertainty, although she tried to crowd the thought down, brought her to the verge of despair when she allowed the topic to get possession of her mind. And she despaired of Tom Cameron, as well. What had become of him—if he was the passenger the unfortunate Ralph Stillinger had taken up into the air with him on his last flight?
Had Tom really been killed? Had Helen learned his fate by this time? Ruth wished she was back in Paris with her chum that they might institute a search for Tom Cameron.
Nor was the girl of the Red Mill free from worry regarding those at home. Uncle Jabez’s letter, which she had received before leaving the hospital, had filled her heart with forebodings. She had written at once to assure him and Aunt Alvirah that she was returning soon.
But now the time of that return seemed very doubtful indeed. If she was sent to Germany as a prisoner—or kept aboard this steamship which the Germans intended to make into a “mother ship” for U-boats—it might be long months, even years, before she reached home.
Tom had said the war would soon be over; but there was no surety of that. It was only a hope. Ruth might never again see the dear little oldwoman whose murmured complaint of, “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!” had become the familiar quotation of Ruth and her young friends.
Aunt Alvirah was dear to Ruth. The girl desired more strongly than ever before in her life to be with the poor old woman again.
She could no longer hear the snapping of the radio, now that daylight had come. Either Krueger, the assistant and traitorous radio operator, had managed to communicate with the commander of the German U-boat 714, or further effort to this end was considered useless now. Another attempt might be made again when night came. Ruth knew it to be a fact that the German submersibles seldom rose to the surface of the sea and put up their radio masts except at night.
It was during the dark hours that those sharks of the sea received orders from Nauen, the great German radio station, and communicated with each other, as well as with such supply ships as might be working in conjunction with the submarines.
If these mutineers were successful in carrying out their plan, and made a junction with the U-boat that carried a crew to supplement those Germans already aboard theAdmiral Pekhard, the enemy might succeed in putting into commission a craft that would greatly aid in the submarine warfare.
Thus far it had been so daringly conceived and well carried through that the conspiracy promised to rise to one of the very greatest German intrigues of the war. Its final success, however, rested on time and place. The submarine and the stolen steamer must come together soon, or the latter would surely run across one of the innumerable patrol ships with which the Allies were scouring this part of the Atlantic.
It was noon before the beat of theAdmiral Pekhard’spropellers announced that she was again under control. The rolling motion that had finally become nauseating to even as good a sailor as Ruth, was now overcome. The ship plowed through the sea steadily, if slowly.
Occasionally the girl heard a footstep pass her stateroom window; but she kept the port nearly closed so that nobody could peer in. Some time after the screw had started a man came and knocked on the pane.
She smelled coffee and heard the rattle of dishes; so she opened the window.
The man thrust in to her a pot of coffee and a platter of ham and eggs—coarse fare, but welcome, for Ruth found she had a robust appetite. She placed a piece of silver in the man’s palm and heard a muttered “Thank you!” in German.
She felt that it might be well to make a friend among the mutineers if she could do so.
It was not long after she was fed that another footstep halted at her open port. The voice of Boldig, the recreant officer of the ship came to her ear.
“Do you want anything, Miss Fielding?” he asked.
At first she would not speak; but when he repeated his question, adding:
“You know, I can draw those nails in your door as well as I could hammer them in,” she hastened to reply:
“I want nothing.”
He laughed most disagreeably. “You might as well be good natured about it, my dear,” he said. “No knowing how long we shall be shipmates. I am quite sure the commander of the submersible will not takeyouaboard his craft; so I fear you are apt to remain with us.”
She said nothing. The threat was only what she had feared. What could she do or say? She was adrift on a sea of circumstances more terrifying than the ocean itself.
Boldig went away laughing; she threw herself upon her berth, trembling and weeping. All her spirit was broken now; she could not control the fears that possessed her.
The bravest and most cheerful person will come after a time to a point where he or she can bear no more with high courage. Nerves and will had both given way in Ruth Fielding’s case. For an hour or more she was merely a very ill, very much frightened young woman.
The injury she had suffered when the Clair hospital was bombed—that injury which still troubled her physically—had naturally helped undermine her wonderful courage and self-possession. The news from Charlie Bragg of Tom Cameron’s possible disaster had likewise shaken her. What had happened aboard this steamship during the past twenty-four hours had completed her undoing.
Ruth Fielding had an unwavering trust in a Higher Power that guides and guards; but she was no supine believer in what one preacher of a robust doctrine has termed “leaving and loafing.” She considered it eminently fit, while leaving resultswith the Almighty, to do all that she could to bring things out right herself.
Therefore she did not wholly give way to either aches or pains or to the feeling of helplessness that had come over her. Not for long did she lose courage.
She got off her bed, closed the window, and proceeded to make a fresh toilet. Meanwhile she considered how she might barricade her door if Boldig removed the nails and attempted to enter the stateroom against her will. Of course, the lock could easily be smashed.
She finally saw how she might move the bed between the door and the washstand, so that the latter would brace the bed in such a way that the door could not be forced inward. She could sleep in the bed in that position, and she decided to take this precaution.
That was in case Boldig removed the spikes holding fast her door. Now that she had considered the matter from every side, she was not sure but she desired to have the German officer release her—no matter what his reason might be for so doing.
She must, however, gain something else first. Her wit must win what her physical force might not. She bided her time till evening.
Again the man came to her window with food. It proved to be another platter of ham andeggs, flanked this time with a pot of wretched tea.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Ruth, “is ham and eggs all you know how to cook? I shall be squealing, or clucking pretty soon. Is there nothing else to eat aboard?”
“Ain’t no cook, Miss,” the man said. “We’re all so busy, anyway, that we just have to get what we can quickly. I’m sorry,” for she had dropped another half-dollar into his palm.
“Is there nobody to cook for you hard-working men?” repeated Ruth briskly. “How many of you are there?”
“Eleven, Miss, counting Mr. Boldig.”
“Why, that’s not so many. And you feed Mr. Dowd and Mr. Rollife, of course?”
“They haven’t had as much as you, Miss. Mr. Boldig said they could stand a little fasting, anyway. We haven’t had any decent grub ourselves.”
“I could cook for you!” Ruth cried eagerly. “I’ll do it, too, if you men want me to. I’d rather do that than be shut up here all the time. And—then—I’d like a change from ham and eggs,” and she laughed.
“Yes, ma’am. I s’pected you would. But I don’t see——”
“You tell the other men what I say—that I would cook for you all if I were let out of here.But I must be guaranteed that you will not harm me if I do this.”
“Who’d want to harm you, Miss?” returned the man, with some sharpness.
“I don’t know that anybody would. I am sure if I worked for you, and cooked for you, you would not see any of your mates hurt me?”
“No, indeed, Miss,” said the fellow warmly. “Nor anybody else. I’ll tell the other boys. And I’ll speak to Mr. Boldig——”
“Send him here,” interrupted Ruth quickly. “Tell him I want to speak to him. But you speak to your mates and tell them what I am willing to do. If I cook for you I want ‘safe conduct.’”
“Of course, ma’am. Nobody shall hurt you. And I’ll tell Mr. Boldig to come.”
Within half an hour she heard Boldig’s quick step upon the deck. He barked in at the open window:
“What’s this you are up to, Miss Fielding? You’ll set my men all by the ears. You are a dangerous character, I believe. What do you mean by telling them you will cook for them if I let you out of your room?”
Ruth thought he was not so angry as he made out to be. She said boldly:
“I am willing to earn the good will of the men in that way, Mr. Boldig. You know why I do it. I shall appeal to them if you undertake to treatme in any way unbecoming your position as a gentleman and an officer.”
“You have a small opinion of me, Miss Fielding!” he exclaimed.
“That is your fault, not mine,” she told him coolly. “And I hope you will show me that I am wrong.”
He went away without further word, and in a little while she heard somebody drawing the nails from the doorframe.
“Who is that?” she asked before she unlocked the door.
“It’s me, ma’am,” said the rather drawling voice of the man Boldig called “Fritz.”
He did not seem to be a typical German at least. When Ruth opened her door she found the man to be rather a simple-looking fellow. He grinned and touched his forelock.
“I’m to show you where they cook, Miss, and how to find the mess tins and all. There’s a good fire in one of the galley ranges. The boys is all your friends, Miss. You needn’t be afraid of us.”
“I am not at all afraid of you, Fritz,” she said, smiling at him. “I count you as my friend aboard here, if nobody else is.”
“Sure you can count on me, Miss. You know,” he added confidentially, “I ain’t a reg’lar German. Not like Mr. Boldig and these other fellers. I wasborn in Boston, and I’d rather be right there now than over on this side of the pond. But you needn’t tell anybody I said so.”
“I won’t say anything about it,” she told him, following him through the passages toward the steward’s and cook’s quarters. “But why, then, if your heart is not in this business, why did you join in the expedition to take charge of theAdmiral Pekhard?”
“Their money, Miss,” Fritz told her. “There’s a heap of money in it. When I finish the voyage, though, I’m going to get back to the States. I’m through with all this then. I’ll have money enough to open a shop of my own.”
“And do you suppose you will be welcome at home, when people know of your treachery?” asked Ruth indignantly.
“No, Miss. I won’t be welcome if they know it. But they won’t. I ain’t fool enough to tell ’em.”
In ten minutes Ruth had learned all that was necessary for her to know about the cooking quarters and the tools she had to work with. There was a good fire, as Fritz had said, and she at once went to work on baking powder biscuit—and she made a heap of them. She knew that thirteen men (counting the two prisoners aft) could eat a lot of bread. In the cold storage room was fresh meat and plenty of bacon and ham. She had towork alone, for the Germans had all they could do to steer the ship, keep lookout, stoke the fires and run the engines properly. She wondered that they got any sleep at all, and Fritz admitted to her that they were only allowed two hours’ relief at a time.
Boldig was a driver; but he was just the sort of man to head such a piratical expedition as this. He worked hard himself, and knew how to get every ounce of work possible out of those under him.
He looked in at Ruth working in the kitchen, and spoke quite nicely to her. Perhaps the great plate of biscuits, pork chops, and French fried potatoes she gave him to take up to the wheelhouse, caused him to consider her wishes to a degree.
Later she insisted that Mr. Dowd and Rollife, the radio man, should have their share. She made one of the men go to Boldig for the keys to their rooms, and she piled a tray high with good things for the prisoners to eat. Boldig would not let her go herself to the men in durance. He would not trust her to talk with them.
She washed her dishes, banked her fire, and laid out what she purposed to cook for breakfast. Then, very tired indeed and with the lame shoulder fairly “jumping,” she retired to her stateroom. It was then ten o’clock, and having had nosleep at all the night before Ruth was desperately tired.
She entered her room, locked the door, and pushed the bed as she had planned between the door and the stationary washstand. Then she went to bed, feeling that she would be safe.