But nobody had to wake her in the morning. The sea had become rough over night, and at the slow pace she was traveling theAdmiral Pekhardrolled a good deal in the roughening waves.
Ruth awoke with a bright idea in her head, and she proceeded to put it into execution as soon as she got the men’s breakfast out of the way. For Boldig and the chief officer and radio man, as well as herself, she had some of Aunt Alvirah’s griddle cakes with eggs and bacon. Between two of the cakes she put on one of the plates for the imprisoned men, she slipped a paper on which she had written before leaving her stateroom:
“I am free while I do the cooking. I can get to your rooms if I only had keys to free you. Tell me what to do. R. F.”
She had given her word to Boldig to do no harm; but she did not think this was breaking her word. It might be possible for Mr. Dowd, Rollife and herself to get free—even free of the ship. The motor boat was still trailing the steamship,although if the sea became much rougher she presumed the mutineers would have to find some means of getting the launch inboard.
Half an hour later Boldig came into the galley, his face aflame. He slapped down the piece of paper she had written her note on before Ruth, and glared at her.
“It is impossible to trust a woman!” he growled. “Did you suppose I would let you send food to those fellows without examining it myself? I am not so foolish. Now, my lady, you shall keep on cooking; but your friends aft there can go without anything fancy. I’ll take them what I please hereafter.”
He turned on his heel and whipped out of the place. Ruth was almost in tears. And they were not inspired by terror, although she had been startled by the man’s words and look. It seemed that she was not to be able to aid her friends—or herself—to escape.
Yet, even in her grief and in the midst of her worry, a gleam of amusement came to her at Boldig’s, “It is impossible to trust a woman.” This from a traitor—a person impossible to trust!
But even Fritz had not much to say to her when he came to help peel vegetables for the men’s dinner. He admitted to her that thus far Krueger had not been able to pick up any word from the submersible that had been engaged to meetthe pirates if they accomplished their part of the plot—which they had. The radio was crackling most of the day, showing that the leaders of the mutineers were getting anxious.
After she had cleared up the dinner dishes (and that was no easy work, because of her lame shoulder) Ruth went and lay down. She took the trouble to brace the bedstead against the washstand as before. Some time after she had fallen asleep she was awakened by a noise at the door. She awoke with her gaze fastened on the knob, and was sure it was being turned. But the door was locked as well as barricaded.
Before she could be positive that anybody was there who meant her harm, there was a sudden hail from the open deck. She heard several men running. Then a shout in German:
“Mr. Boldig! It is a man afloat! Man overboard!”
Ruth thought she heard somebody run from her door.
She arose and tremblingly put on her dress. Then she hastened to pull aside the bed and open her door. She felt that she was safer out upon deck. Besides, she was curious to know what the cry had meant.
To one who had been more than forty-eight hours drifting in a scuttle-butt in mid-Atlantic, the sight of almost any kind of craft would have been welcome. Tom Cameron hailed first the plume of drifting smoke, then the mast and stacks, and then the high, camouflaged bow of theAdmiral Pekhardwith a joy that increased deliriously as he became assured that the ship was steaming head-on to his poor raft.
The steamship was moving very slowly, and it was hours before, waving his coat frantically as he stood in his bobbing craft, he knew he had been sighted by the lookout. The latter had not expected to see anything like Tom and the remains of the wrecked Zeppelin in these waters. The lookout had been straining his eyes to catch sight of a periscope.
It was providential that the course of theAdmiral Pekhardwas bringing her almost directly toward the drifting bit of wreckage. She wasalmost on top of Tom before the lookout hailed and Boldig ran up to the bridge to get a better look at the object which had caused the excitement.
“That is no part of an underseas boat!” cried Boldig to the lookout. “What is it?”
“There is a man in it—see! He waves his coat. It looks like a boat—no! It is one mystery, Herr Boldig.”
But the latter now had his glasses fixed on the drifting raft. He saw the broken stays, the slipper-shaped bow of the Zeppelin, and he suddenly understood. It was not the first wreck of a Zeppelin’s frame work that he had seen floating in the sea; but it was the first in which he had seen a living man.
Boldig himself hailed—hailed in German. And fortunately for Tom Cameron he replied in the same language. His accent was irreproachable. Had it not been, the German officer might have thought twice about attempting to rescue the lone castaway.
The young American had no idea at first that this was a German-manned steamship—that she had been boldly taken over on the high seas by a gang of German pirates. Yet he was sharp enough to realize almost at once that there was something wrong with her.
No passengers on her decks, no officers on herbridge until this one hailed him, and no crew along her waist watching him. Besides she was coming along at such a crippled gait.
He knew she must be a passenger ship, and the Union Jack at her masthead showed her nationality. But where was she going and why was she not convoyed?
Tom had already seen the smoke of several destroyers or converted trawlers, but had not been himself sighted by their lookouts. This was his first chance of rescue, and he was not at all particular just then who the people were aboard theAdmiral Pekhard, as he saw she was named. With that name and under that flag she must be a British ship. As he was drifting in a part of a German Zeppelin, he naturally expected to be taken aboard as a prisoner. Yet he did or said nothing to reveal his true identity for the time being. If they wished to think him a German at first, all right; explanations could come later.
Boldig called three men to man the motor boat that trailed astern. He had to stop the ship’s engines to do this, for steam could not be kept up without the small force of stokers at his command working at top speed through their entire watch. The whole crew were almost exhausted. Those whose watch it was below at this time must be allowed to sleep to recover their strength. It was a ticklish situation in more ways than one.
TheAdmiral Pekhardbegan to roll in the trough of the sea. As she rolled toward him Tom could better see her deck and upperworks. He marked a woman’s figure come out of the after companion on the upper deck. She stood there alone and shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked off at him.
The siege Tom Cameron had been through since the Zeppelin was wrecked had racked his body a good deal, but by no means had it weakened his mind. He was sure there was something wrong with this craft. The three men were an hour in tuning up the motor-boat engine and getting that craft near enough to his raft to take Tom aboard.
The latter saw that neither of the three men was an officer. One was Fritz, and he spoke to the castaway in English. But Tom was wary. There was a flaxen-haired, big-bodied fellow who glowered at him and spoke nothing but German.
“You fell with an airship—yes?” this man asked, and Tom nodded.
The American had done secret service work behind the German lines on one occasion. There he had assumed the character of a Prussian military officer, and gradually he took on the attitude that he had used familiarly at that time. His speech and appearance bore out the claim he meantto make if these people proved to be Germans, as he more than half suspected. How the Germans ever got control of a British ship was a mystery!
Boldig met Tom Cameron at the rail when he came up the captain’s ladder. He offered a hand that the American was forced to accept.
“You have the good fortune to escape both peril by air and sea,Mein Herr?” said Boldig. “Your companions?”
“Are gone,” Tom replied in German, shaking his head. “I am of all, the lone fortunate. ‘The survival of the fit’—is it not so? We were bound for London. Because I had lived there much, I was to pilotHerr Leutnant-Commanderover the city!”
“Ah!” said Boldig. “I thought you did not seem entirely German.”
“It is the heart that counts, is it not?” Tom returned.
He knew this arrogant-looking man must be a German through and through. The British flag flying over the ship did not reassure him. He had ventured his story of being the Zeppelin pilot as a bit of camouflage. If he was mistaken—if this was an honest vessel and crew—he carried papers in his money belt that would explain who he really was.
“And you,Mein Herr?” Tom asked with agesture indicating theAdmiral Pekhard’sempty decks.
“Our story you shall learn later,” said Boldig. “But rest assured. You are among friends.”
He hastened to show the flaxen-haired man and Fritz how properly to pay off the line holding the motor boat in trail. The engines started again, and the ship began to pull ahead.
Tom, standing upon the after deck, gazed quietly around him. He felt that the situation was strained. There was something threatening in the pose of Boldig after all. This was no tramp steam freighter with half a crew. No, indeed! She was a well found and well furnished passenger craft. Where were the crew and passengers that should be aboard of her?
And just then he saw a white hand beckoning at the after cabin companionway. He remembered the woman he had observed from the wreck of the Zeppelin standing at that doorway. Swiftly Tom crossed the deck behind Boldig’s back and reached the door which was open more than a crack.
The hand seized his own. The touch thrilled him before he heard her voice or caught a glimpse of Ruth Fielding’s face.
“Tom! Tom Cameron!” she murmured. “You are saved and have been sent to me.”
“Ruth!” He almost fell down the stairwayto reach her. He took her in his arms with such ardor that she could not escape. In that moment of reunion and relief she met his lips with as frank and warm a kiss as though she had really been his sister.
“Tom! Dear Tom!” she murmured.
“Great heavens, Ruth! how did you come here? What is the meaning of this business? Those Germans out there——?”
“And there are only two faithful men aboard—the first officer and the radio chief. Both locked in their rooms, Tom. We are four against eleven of these pirates!”
“Pirates!”
“No less,” the girl hastened to say. “I cannot tell you all now. The others escaped in the small boats; but Mr. Dowd, Mr. Rollife, and I were left. Then the German members of the crew, and this officer, Boldig, came back and took the ship. They expect a big submarine with an extra crew to pick them up.”
“What under the sun——”
“Oh!” gasped Ruth, hearing Boldig outside. “Here he comes! He has been so brutal—so disgusting! Oh, Tom!”
Her friend wheeled and leaped up the stair again. As he went he drew the automatic pistol from his bosom where he had hidden it and kept it dry. As Boldig thrust back the door Tompushed the muzzle of his weapon against the man’s breast.
“Up with your hands!” Tom commanded. “Quick!”
Boldig fell back a pace. Tom followed him out on the open deck. He reached quickly and snatched the pistol from the German’s holster with his left hand.
Then, his eye flickering to the men at the rail and seeing the flaxen-haired man trying to draw his pistol, Tom sent one bullet in that direction. The man, Guelph, sank, groaning, to the deck.
“Pick up that pistol, muzzle first, and bring it here!” commanded Tom to Fritz, and the latter obeyed quite meekly. Neither he nor the third seaman was armed. After all, Boldig did not trust his underlings.
“How shall we get your two friends out of their rooms?” Tom asked Ruth without looking around at her, for he kept his gaze upon Boldig and the others.
“That man has the keys to their staterooms.”
“Come and search his pockets,” said Tom. “Don’t stand between me and him. Understand?” he added to Boldig. “I will shoot to kill if you try any tricks. Keep your hands up!”
Was this Tom Cameron, Ruth thought? She had never seen Tom assume such a character before. She had forgotten what army training haddone for her childhood’s friend. When he had come to see her on his leaves-of-absence from the front he had seemed all boy as usual. But now!
She found the keys, and in five minutes Mr. Dowd and Mr. Rollife, armed from the right collection of weapons in the captain’s room this time, joined the wonderfully arrived castaway on the open deck.
Dowd had handcuffs, too, and Boldig, Fritz, and the other unwounded seamen were quickly manacled and shut into separate rooms below.
Ruth tried to make the wounded Guelph more comfortable, although he was not seriously hurt. While she was doing this, and her three friends were searching the rest of the crew for arms and separating them so that they could do no harm, the girl chanced to glance over the rail and saw a sight that called forth a cry of rejoicing from her very heart.
There was a gray, swiftly steaming ship, a warship, bearing down upon theAdmiral Pekhard, and the Stars and Stripes was at her masthead!
To clear up all the mysteries about their adventures—about Tom’s wonderful flight in the airplane, his capture by the Zeppelin’s commander, his wrecking of the Hun machine, his providential escape from the sea; as well, the trials and dangers through which Ruth had passed—to clear up all these things certainly took much time. It was not until the excitement was over that they really could talk it all out.
For at first came happenings almost as exciting as those that had already taken place. TheSeattlehad more to do than merely to take the Germans aboard as prisoners and Ruth and her friends as honored passengers, while they put a prize crew on theAdmiral Pekhard.
For the German plot had been so far-reaching, and it had come so near being carried through to a successful finish, that the commander of theSeattle, of the fast cruiser type, bound home for orders, felt an attempt must be made to punish the Germans connected with the plot.
That U-boat 714 must be caught. They made the assistant wireless operator, Krueger, admit that within the hour he had caught a message from the U-boat and had sent one in reply. The submarine would arrive about nightfall, Krueger said.
The commander of the American cruiser made his plans quickly. He sent a large crew aboard theAdmiral Pekhard. Then the cruiser steamed away to a distance. But she was a very fast ship and she did not remain far out of sight of the British steamship.
Mr. Rollife had insisted on remaining at his post. The chatter of theAdmiral Pekhard’sradio kept the American commander in touch with all that went on. When the submarine appeared on the surface, not many hundred yards away from the ship that was supposed to be in the hands of German plotters, theSeattlestarted for the spot at top-speed.
It was a great race! Tom was as excited as any sailor aboard, and until it was all over he was not content to remain with Ruth below decks.
Four of the cruiser’s prize crew, masquerading as Germans, manned the motor boat and shot over to the gray side of the huge submarine. They could all speak German. They fooled the U-boat commander,Herr Kapitan-LeutnantScheiner, nicely. He sent his first in command and the special crew brought from the submarine base atKiel to the passenger ship, crowding the small launch to the very guards.
When these men went, one by one, up the ladder, they were met behind the shelter of the rail by a number of determined American blue jackets, who disarmed them and knocked them down promptly if they ventured to offer resistance.
Before the smoke of theSeattlewas sighted the two deck guns of theAdmiral Pekhard, their breechlocks replaced, were trained upon the open hatch of the U-714. Through a trumpet the officer in command of the crew from theSeattleorderedKapitan-LeutnantScheiner to surrender his boat and crew.
When he made a dive for the open hatch, the forward gun of the British ship, manned by American gunners, put a shell right down that hatchway—and Scheiner was instantly killed.
TheAdmiral Pekhardwas sent to Plymouth, as that port was nearer than Brest. Besides, theSeattle’scommander had learned already by radio that the entire ship’s company of the British ship had safely reached that port.
Mr. Dowd and Rollife went with theAdmiral Pekhard; but after due consideration, and listening to the pleadings of Ruth Fielding and Tom Cameron, the latter pair were allowed to remain aboard the American cruiser.
“You are due to reach New York anyway, MissFielding,” said the commander. “And from what he tells me of his experience, I believe Captain Cameron has earned a furlough. Although I presume he will first have to be reported as being absent without leave.”
All this is in the past, now. It seemed to Ruth Fielding, standing on the porch of the old farmhouse attached to the Red Mill and looking down the rutted highway, that many, many of her experiences during the months of war must have been dreams.
Even the injured shoulder troubled her no more. She was her old vigorous, cheerful self again. Yet there was a difference. There was a poise of mind and a seriousness about the girl of the Red Mill that would never again wear off. No soul that has been seared in any way by the awful flame of the Great War will ever recover from it. The scar must remain till death.
The war was well nigh over. Tom’s prophecy was to be fulfilled. The Hun, driven to madness by his own sins, could fight no more. The actual fighting might end any day. On a ship coming homeward were Helen and Jennie—the latter with a tall and handsome French colonel at her side, who had been given special leave of absence from the French Intelligence Department.
Ruth saw an automobile swing into the road acouple of miles away and grow larger and larger very rapidly as it rushed down toward her. She wound a chiffon veil about her head as she called back into the open doorway of the farmhouse kitchen:
“Tom is coming, Aunty. I sha’n’t be long away.”
“All right, my pretty! All right!” returned the voice of Aunt Alvirah, quite strong and cheerful again. “Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! All right!”
She hobbled to the door on her cane. Her apple-withered cheeks had a little color after all. The little old woman began to mend the moment she set eyes on “her pretty” again.
When the automobile pulled down at the gate for Ruth to step in beside the begoggled Tom and the engine was shut off, they could hear the grinding of the mill-stones. Times had improved. Uncle Jabez, as dusty and solemn of visage as ever, but with a springier step than was his wont, came to the door and waved a be-floured hand to them.
“All right, Ruthie?” asked Tom, smiling at her.
“Quite all right, Tom.”
“Got the whole day free, have you?”
“Until supper time. We can take a nice, long jaunt.”
“I wish it was going to continue forever—just for you and me, Ruth!” he murmured longingly, as he slipped in the clutch and the engine began to purr. “A life trip, dear!”
“Well,” returned Ruth Fielding, looking at him with shining eyes, “who knows?”
THE END
THE END
THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES
By ALICE B. EMERSON
12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors.
Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional.
Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her adventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest of every reader.
Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction.
1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY,PublishersNEW YORK