The triangular fin was now close upon the lad.
The triangular fin was now close upon the lad.
Rapidly the whaleboat was rowed to the wherry, which "lay to" some distance away, with the Number Two whaleboat alongside.
The tidings of Herc's loss were received with some anxiety by the ensign. He turned to Ned, whose face had gone white at the news, and asked curtly if Herc could swim.
"Like a fish, sir," was Ned's rejoinder, although he had hard work to keep his lips from quivering at the thought of his friend's possible fate.
"Then there is a chance that he can be saved yet," breathed the ensign; "give way for that float yonder. Strong, signal the news to the flagship and inform them that we are standing by."
Ned, badly unnerved as he was, made the necessary signals, and received an order to "carry on" from the flag-ship.
The two whaleboats and the wherry at once got under way for the target near which Herc had last been seen.
Suddenly Ned gave a shout and pointed ahead.
"Look, sir, look!" he cried.
Not more than a hundred feet from them arubicund object, which a second glance showed to be Herc's head, was bobbing about on the waves.
But the water had by this time grown dark and oily-looking. The approaching squall would burst in all its fury in a few minutes.
The work of saving the swimming lad must be accomplished within a brief few minutes, or not at all.
"Hold on, my lad, we'll get you," hailed the ensign encouragingly, as the wherry drew closer and closer to the plucky boy.
"Aye, aye, sir," hailed back Herc, expelling a thin stream of water from his lips and giving a cheerful grin; "but hurry up, for I've forgotten my lightning-rod, and it looks like thunder."
But, just as Herc's easy rescue seemed a matter of certainty, the intentions of his saviors were interfered with in a startling fashion.
It was Ned who saw the impending peril first.
"Look! Look there!" he shouted. "What's that, sir?"
"That" was a black, triangular object, moving through the water toward the unconscious Herc, who was treading water easily. The dark objectcame on at a rapid pace, the ripples parting on each side of it as it cut its way along.
The ensign's reply to Ned's exclamation was a cry of alarm.
"Give way!" he shouted. "We've got to get that man quickly, if at all."
Ned looked his question.
"It's a shark!" shot out the ensign, his face ashy-white and his lips sternly compressed; "these waters swarm with them."
Ned was almost unnerved. The boat was still some feet from Herc, and the triangular fin was now close upon the lad.
Suddenly its steady motion ceased, and it shot forward with a rush.
At the same instant Herc perceived his peril, and gave one harrowing shriek, as he saw the terrible nature of the approaching peril.
He swam desperately toward the boats, his countenance strained and lined with the effort and the horror under which he labored.
"Crack!"
The sharp bark of a service revolver sounded.
"Crack! crack!"
Again and again the reports reverberated, andthe water behind Herc grew troubled and crimson.
The fin vanished and only a small whirlpool remained to show where the mortally wounded shark had sunk slowly downward.
In the stern of the wherry stood Ned, his face set and stern, and in his hand the navy revolver that had done the work.
It was the ensign's weapon, which he had laid on the stern seat for his greater ease in moving about.
Ned, casting about for some means of saving Herc, had suddenly spied it, and, on the impulse of the moment, had snatched it up and fired.
"Well done, my lad," said the ensign in a voice that still trembled from the keen tension of the past few minutes.
"Sir—I——" began Ned, somewhat alarmed, now that Herc was out of danger. He had committed what he knew must be a breach of discipline in seizing the officer's pistol.
"You mean that it wasn't quite the thing to do to use my revolver," laughed the ensign. "My lad, I'm proud that it was put to such good service; glad that you were quick enough of wit to use it in the nick of time."
A few moments later Herc was on board the wherry, and in reply to the eager questions of its occupants, gave them a brief account of his accident. He did not mention the fact that it was Kennell who had tripped him for the second time, however, saving that for Ned's private ear later on. Herc had his own ideas about getting even with the brutal blue-jacket.
"When I saw that nothing could save me from being 'wiped out,' I stayed on the float," related Herc. "I recollected that I had felt an iron brace on its subsurface with my foot, as I clambered up on to it.
"The minute I saw the signal, therefore, I dived and hung on to the brace under water till I felt sure the shell had passed. Then I came up to the surface, and the rest you know."
"Thanks to your friend Strong, here," amended the ensign, "whose gallant conduct and presence of mind I mean to mention especially to Captain Dunham on our return to the ship. Had it not been for Strong's quick and sure aim, your adventure might have had a different termination, my man."
And now the long-expected squall burst in leaden-colored fury. To the boys, who had neverwitnessed a tropical squall, its rage was amazing. The flag-ship, which had seen its approach, had already signaled the recall, and the boats were on their way back to theManhattanwhen the tempest broke.
"Bale boat!" was the order transmitted through the little flotilla as the waves began to come climbing over the bows of the small craft and torrents of rain invaded them also.
By the time the battleship's side was reached, however, the squall was over and the sun shining out brightly once more.
"That's the suddenest thing I ever saw," gasped Ned to Herc, as they regained the deck of their five-million-dollar home, as Herc called the big Dreadnought.
"It's not half as sudden as what's going to happen to a young party named Kennell before very long," grinned Herc meaningly.
Two nights later there was a brilliant scene at the Hotel del Gran Plaza, the principal hostelry of Guantanamo. The mayor and civic dignitaries of the town, together with the merchants of the place, were giving a dinner and reception to the officers of the squadron.
During the time that had elapsed since Herc's rescue, the Dreadnought Boys had been participating in their capacity as two of the crew of the forward turret in battle practice. They had in that time become used to the big twelve-inch gun, and proved themselves capable of the responsibility and confidence vested in them by their officers.
Well pleased with themselves, therefore, the two lads had come off the ship that evening for shore leave. They had employed much of their time in strolling about, buying souvenirs and post-cards—which have even invaded Cuba—and seeing the few sights the town had to offer. Being both temperate, clean-cut young fellows, the low drinking dens and other resorts of the place had no attraction for them, although they were well patronized by a number of the sailors. To the credit of Uncle Sam's navy, though, be it said that the keepers of such places are coming to look less and less to the wearers of naval uniforms for their profits. The man-o'-warsman of to-day is an ambitious young fellow. He is far too anxious to get ahead in his chosen profession to haunt places of foolish dissipation.
"Say, Ned—moving pictures!" Herc nudgedhis companion, as the two stood in front of a brilliantly lighted building on the main street of the Cuban town.
"We've got some time yet before the shore boats leave; let's take them in," suggested Ned.
As this was just what Herc had been anxious to do, no time was lost in buying tickets and securing two seats well down in front, where the two boys had a clear view of every film as it was displayed.
After the exhibition of two or three of the pictures, stories familiar in such places, the screen suddenly announced that the next picture was to be a series of views taken in the Joliet penitentiary, showing the various phases of convict life. A note explained that the pictures had been taken a few years before, prior to the wave of prison reform that had swept over the country.
The first scene showed the interior of a basket-making shop, with the rows of stripe-clothed unfortunates at work on their monotonous tasks. One after another similar repulsive views were shown.
"Say, let's get out of this—the air seems bad," breathed Ned at last.
As he spoke a fresh view was thrown on the screen. It showed a group of life-prisoners at work in the prison-yard. Unlike the other pictures, this one exhibited the figures at more than life-size. In their exaggerated proportions every form showed up clear as print, and the features of each hard face could be as clearly defined as if the pictured subject was a living being.
The boys had risen to leave, but a sudden exclamation from Herc brought them to a sudden halt.
Angry murmurs in Spanish rose about the boys.
"W-what's the matter?" asked Ned in an astonished voice, gazing about.
"Come on, you chump, and let's get out of here. We're blocking the views of the Cubanolas, or whatever they call themselves; but before you go, look at the two center convicts in that picture. Who do they remind you of?"
Herc's voice shook with excitement. Ned gazed a few seconds fixedly at the screen, while the angry hum of protest increased.
"Seat-a down," came voices.
"By the big horn-spoon, those two wearers ofstripes are Carl Schultz and his pal, Silas, or I'm a Dutchman," sputtered Ned, as the two boys, having exhausted the patience of the audience seated behind them, beat a hasty retreat.
A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.
"You are sure of it, aren't you?"
Herc asked the question as they gained the street.
"Certain," replied Ned; "no mistaking that underhung jaw and heavy brow of friend Silas."
"Or that lady-like simper of the rascal Schultz. Ned, I feel that we are on the verge of big discoveries."
"Why?"
"I don't know; it's in the air—like electricity."
"Well, they'll have to hurry along—those big discoveries of yours, I mean," laughed Ned; "for it's ten-thirty now, and the shore boats will be at the float at eleven-thirty."
"That's an hour," responded Herc, "and many a big battle has been fought and won in that time. By Hookey!" he broke off suddenly, "did you see those two fellows who just passed?"
"I saw two rather fleshy men in eveningclothes hurry by in the direction of the hotel. Why?"
"Did you recognize them?"
Ned laid a hand on Herc's shoulder and wheeled the red-headed Dreadnought Boy about.
"Say, Herc, what's the matter with you to-night? You've got rememberitis, or some similar disease. Who are you going to recognize next?"
"I don't know; likely to run into Gran'pa Zack, if this keeps up. Those two fellows were the same pair of worthies we yanked out of the seats that day in the subway."
Herc chuckled at the recollection.
"No?"
"Yes."
"The Pulsifer Gun people. The concern that sells American-made guns to foreign powers?"
"That's right."
"Are you sure?"
"As certain as I am that the two figures in that convict picture were Silas and Schultz."
"If that is the case, we might just trail after them a little way. There's little danger of their recognizing us. I don't imagine that they are here, while the fleet is on battle practice and tryingout new guns, for any good or patriotic purpose."
"That's just my idea. Anyhow, they are going toward the hotel where all that glare of light is. As we want to have a peep at the festivities anyway, we might as well kill two birds with one stone."
"I agree with you. Come on."
The two Dreadnought Boys wheeled about and began to follow the course taken by the red-faced, be-diamonded men they had last encountered so strangely in New York.
As they had guessed, the pair they were shadowing went directly to the hotel—the front of which bore a brilliantly illuminated set-piece, formed of hundreds of red, white and blue incandescents, the whole forming a representation of the Stars and Stripes. Instinctively the two lads saluted the colors, and then passed up the broad wooden steps on to a capacious veranda.
Through windows opening on to it they could see the long dinner-tables, at which, the meal concluded, officers and civilians now sat listening to the more or less complimentary speeches of the citizens and dignitaries of Guantanamo.
"Looking at the big wigs, eh?"
The boys turned.
Behind them stood old Tom. The boys greeted him warmly.
"Coming down the street? I want to buy a few gim-cracks for the kids at home."
The lads shook their heads. For reasons of their own they were anxious to remain about the hotel till they caught a further glimpse of the two red-faced men.
"I'll meet you here in half an hour then," suggested old Tom.
And so it was agreed. The old man-o'-warsman hurried off and left the boys standing behind one of the big palms, with which the veranda was decorated, discussing in low tones their next move.
But, as things turned out, it was not left to the boys to determine their actions of the immediate future.
A door leading from the banquet-room suddenly opened, and through their leafy screen the boys spied the two red-faced men emerge. They were accompanied by a tall, distinguished-looking man, who wore a Van Dyke beard and was garbed in evening dress. He was smoking a cigar.
As the voices of the three fell on their ears, the boys gave a start.
One of the red-faced men had addressed their ill-matched companion as "Varian." The boys at the same instant recognized the inventor of Chaosite and the untried gun for handling the powerful explosive, from the picture they had seen of him in the papers.
Eagerly Ned and Herc listened to catch the drift of their talk, but the three spoke in low tones. Suddenly in a heightened voice, however, one of the red-faced men suggested that they should seek the garden to smoke their cigars.
"You will really enjoy seeing the grounds here, Varian, if you have not done so," said Dave Pulsifer persuasively; "and under this moon they are one of the most beautiful sights the tropics have to offer."
"I should like it above all things, gentlemen," responded Varian cordially, "and in the coolness we can talk over the proposition you say you have to make."
The three, chatting easily, passed down the steps and strolled down a smooth path which led round the corner of the hotel and into the tropicalgardens, which reached for a considerable area behind it.
"The proposition you have to make."
The words rang in Ned's ears.
Could it be possible that Henry Varian, whose invention was already pledged to the United States navy, was dealing with one of the foreign powers represented by the Pulsifers for its purchase?
There was only one way to learn if the navy was dealing with a traitor. Ned decided in a flash to adopt it.
"Come on, Herc," he whispered. "We've got to follow them and hear what they are talking about."
"But we shall be eavesdropping," objected Herc.
"Yes;eavesdropping for the flag," snapped Ned in a low, tense tone, as, with a swift glance about him, he dropped over the rail of the veranda and on to the soft ground beneath. He landed as noiselessly as a cat.
Herc followed him, but was not so successful. In fact, as he struck the ground with a crash, he ejaculated:
"Ouch!" in a loud, startled tone.
Luckily a burst of applause from within, at some sentiment expressed by one of the speech-makers, drowned his exclamation. Ned, in an angry whisper, demanded to know what was the matter with his red-headed companion.
"Gee whitakers! I dropped into a porcupine, I think," moaned Herc. "I feel like a human pin-cushion."
Ned looked at his chum, and then, serious as was the situation, he could not help breaking into a low laugh.
"Herc, you poor fellow, I'm sorry for you," he exclaimed. "You've tumbled into a cactus-bush."
"Oh, is that it?" rejoined Herc. "Well, whatever it is, I can't walk till I get some of these stickers out of me. You go ahead, Ned, and I'll meet you here in half an hour when Tom gets back."
And so it was agreed that Herc was to await Ned's return and employ the time in extracting what he called "stickers."
"Good-bye, Herc," said Ned, under his breath, as he slipped off cautiously, avoiding moonlit spots and dodging along in the black shadows.
"So long," muttered Herc, as he painfullymade toward the hotel steps. "If ever I get these things out of me," he added to himself, "I'll never put a tack in any one's chair again. I know just how it feels now. I'm full of that tack-tus, or whatever you call it."
With the aid of a grinning colored bell-boy, Herc soon got rid of most of his "bristles." By the time old Tom arrived at the appointed meeting-place he was comparatively comfortable once more.
"Where's Ned?" demanded the old salt, gazing about him, as Herc greeted him.
"Oh, he'll be here in a minute. He just went off to talk to some old friends—or rather acquaintances," responded Herc lightly. "He'll be here immediately or sooner."
But Ned was not "here" in a few minutes or in many minutes.
Impatiently the two—the Dreadnought Boy and the old blue-jacket—awaited his coming, but the lad did not appear.
Eleven o'clock struck and no Ned.
The quarter past the hour chimed on the hotel clock and jackies on their way to the boat-landing began to hurry by.
But of Ned there had been no sign.
A JACKIE AGAINST WOLVES.
Ned, gliding softly as a cat stalking a mouse, among the trees—choosing the shady spots to conceal his movements—soon came within earshot of the three men in whose conversation he was so deeply interested.
The moonlight, as intense as it usually is in the tropics, flooded the beautiful grounds of the hotel, making checker-work patterns of black and white beneath the tropical growth.
The Pulsifers and Mr. Varian were standing full in the center of a moonlight flooded opening as the Dreadnought Boy approached them.
"Now, see here, Varian," the elder of the two Pulsifers was saying, "it's sheer madness for a man in your position to refuse our offer."
"I confess that your knowledge of my 'position,' as you call it, puzzles me," rejoined the inventor of the most powerful explosive known, quizzically.
Ned, crouching low in the dark shadow of a poinsettia bush, saw the inventor's face in the flood of silver light, and noted that a smile of disdain had curled his lips.
"Come, come, Varian," urged the other Pulsifer, "let's talk as men to a man. You are not wealthy. You have spent most of what little fortune you had in perfecting Chaosite, until it has become, as it is to-day, the most terrible destructive agent known. As if this were not enough, you have invented a gun-breech of sufficient strength and elasticity to withstand the terrific pressure exerted by the gases liberated when a charge of your explosive is fired."
The inventor nodded, still in the same mocking manner, at the flattering tone. He blew a big cloud of smoke from his cigar, but said nothing. Obviously he was waiting for the other to go on; while Pulsifer, for his part, appeared to be expecting speech of some sort from the inventor. Disappointed in this, he continued.
"You have, as I said, done all these things—crowned your life, I might say—if I wished to be florid—with a magnificent flower of achievement, and what are you going to do with it?"
Pulsifer paused impressively, and came closerto the unmoved inventor, who stood like a figure of stone.
"I say, what are you going to do with your achievement? Fling it away on a notoriously ungrateful government. Waste it on a navy which will not repay you a thousandth part of the sum we are prepared to offer? The power we represent is apt to become involved in war at any moment. The situation in Europe is, as you know, an extremely ticklish one. A spark in the powder-barrel, and 'Woof!' there is an explosion!"
"What you say may be, and undoubtedly is, true," remarked Varian coolly, "but was that what you brought me out here to tell me? You told me you had important business matters to discuss—a proposition to make."
Ned's heart sank. Could it be possible that the inventor was contemplating the dastardly act of selling out his country? He listened with eager attention as the conversation went on.
"Ah, now we are getting down to business," smiled the elder Pulsifer amiably; "we did bring you out here to make a proposition to you, and one that we flatter ourselves will interest you deeply."
Varian bowed gravely, and seemed to wait for the other to continue.
"If you sell out Uncle Sam, I'll knock you down if it's the last thing I do," muttered Ned to himself, clenching his capable fist menacingly.
"You are interested, above all things, in the success of the Varian type of gun—handling the Varian explosive, are you not?"
The elder Pulsifer was doing the talking now. From his earnest manner things were evidently coming to a climax.
"Why, of course, that is obvious. It has been, as you said, my life work. Naturally, I wish to see its full fruition."
"Exactly; and Pulsifer Brothers are going to help you. You have heard of Baron Von——"
To Ned's disappointment, the elder Pulsifer's oily voice sank to a mere whisper, and the lad could not catch the name the gun manufacturer breathed.
"Of course, he——"
"Is at the present time in Washington. Ah, Mr. Varian, there is a genius. He is actually engaged, or reported to be—it serves his purpose just as well—to one of our wealthiest women, and yet all the time his wonderful mind is plotting,planning, scheming for his country. Of course, I tell you this under the pledge of secrecy we exacted from you before leaving the banquet hall?"
"That goes without saying; but you were going to remark?"
"That the baron," again the name was omitted, "came armed with letters to us, and we have consented to transact this business for him. I need scarcely tell you, after having promised this much—that the baron's mission to this country is to acquire the formula of Chaosite; and not only that, but to take back with him the blueprints and specifications of the Varian breech-block and explosion-absorbing machinery, without which the other would be useless."
"The baron is here for that purpose?"
The inventor seemed deeply interested. He thoughtfully inhaled long puffs of his cigar and expelled the smoke slowly.
The Pulsifers were watching him narrowly, without seeming to do so. His attitude, it appeared, puzzled them as much as it did Ned, watching from his leafy bower. In the case of the Dreadnought Boy, however, his mind was practically made up. Varian was prepared to sell his secret to a foreign power—possibly foruse against his own country. He was, or so Ned judged the situation, only awaiting the naming of a price.
"Yes, Mr. Varian, I will not conceal anything from you. We will be perfectly frank," went on Pulsifer. "The baron is here solely for that purpose, cleverly as he has masked the object of his visit. He has declared through the papers that he is here to study our society and write a book about it. I need scarcely add that the humorous interviews with him printed in the New York dailies—which have made him appear in a clownish light—have aided his plans tremendously."
"How long has this—this—baron been here?"
"Oh, but a short time. But, as you will have gathered, he has not let the grass grow under his feet."
"So it would seem," agreed Varian, with a curious, dry intonation.
"As I was about to say, Mr. Varian, the government he represents is a power of the first class. It has unlimited money at its control. The financial resources at its command are unquestioned. The war into which it may shortly be plunged will undermine its credit, its home prestigeand its colonial power if it is not brought to a successful conclusion. To win that war, which will be largely an affair of naval engagements, it will spare no expense to acquire the tools of victory. The baron, and we also, regard the Varian gun and Chaosite as an unbeatable combination. At the trials at the Sandy Hook proving grounds, the gun——"
"But the trials were secret," protested the inventor.
"Money will open any door," suavely rejoined the elder Pulsifer; "it is to our interest to keep abreast of the times; therefore, we made it our business to acquire—I need not insult your intelligence by saying by what means—a complete record of the three-day tests."
"Your enterprise is only equalled by your resourcefulness," remarked the inventor. Again Ned noted in his voice that queer, dry intonation, as if he were trying to mask some other feeling.
"Oh, yes," smiled the elder Pulsifer greasily, "we are very enterprising, Mr. Varian."
He fumbled in his pocket and drew out a paper.
"Let me read you some of the gun's performances, and you can judge if I am speaking the truth or not. On Monday, April the 25th, targetat two miles, wind thirty miles, weather clear: The first shot at nine forty-five scored a bulls-eye; but, the charge being light, three hundred pounds only, the projectile did not——"
"Enough," snapped the inventor. "I see that you had some one there. It is getting late, gentlemen, and if you will come to the point, I shall feel vastly obliged."
"Ah," exclaimed the elder Pulsifer, rubbing his bediamonded hands till they flashed and sparkled in the moonlight, "you are as anxious as we to conclude the negotiations. Well, to put the matter in a nutshell, Mr. Varian, we are authorized by the baron to offer you——"
Ned's heart beat so loud and fast that he half-unconsciously placed his hand over it, as if he could in that way dull its sound.
"Five hundred thousand dollars for the plans, specifications and formula."
"Five hundred thousand, why, gentlemen, I——"
"And a royalty which can be arranged later to suit your own terms," the younger Pulsifer hastened to add.
"Look out, Hank Varian," Ned muttered to himself, as the inventor hesitated, or seemed to,"you are nearer getting a punch on your nose right now than you ever were before, you double-dyed traitor."
"It is a very generous offer," rejoined the inventor, "but——"
Again the Pulsifers interrupted him.
"We are authorized, I may say," added the elder one, "to make the sum eight hundred thousand——"
"Or more," put in his younger brother.
"Eight hundred thousand dollars," mused the inventor in a quiet tone; "why, the government you act for must be made of money."
"They are generous when they have determined to get a thing," smiled the elder Pulsifer, "and they have determined to get the Varian inventions. After all, you see, you can withdraw gracefully from negotiations with Washington. Nothing has been actually accomplished yet, and as matters have only reached an experimental stage nobody is compromised."
"See here, gentlemen," asked Varian suddenly, as if his mind had been fixed on this question all the time Pulsifer had been speaking, "how much money has this government got to spend in cold cash?"
"Why, my dear sir, what a question——"
"Answer me!"
"Well, if you must know—though it is wholly foreign to our discussion—I suppose they could raise a war fund to-morrow of seventy million dollars, to be raised by loans to a billion dollars and a half."
"They could do all this in two days?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Well, you go back to your baron and tell him that if his government worked for ninety days and raised ninety times ninety millionsthey would still be a million miles away from buying Henry Varian to betray his government!"
"You are insane!"
The elder Pulsifer's fat face quivered, while his brother's already red visage deepened in color to an angry crimson.
"No; not insane, gentlemen," quietly replied the inventor. "It is you who must be that for imagining for a moment that I would set a price for selling out Uncle Sam."
"Hurray!" breathed Ned from behind his bush; "it's the Pulsifers I'm aching, twitching, dying to get a slam at now."
"So, then, you have been trying to draw usout!" shouted the elder Pulsifer, beside himself with fury at the unexpected turn of affairs. "You have led us on, you cur, you sneak, you hound, you——"
Smack!
The inventor's palm shot out and struck Pulsifer's fat face a stinging blow. In the moonlight Ned could see a dark, angry patch appear where it had struck.
The younger Pulsifer made a leap for the inventor as the blow resounded. The Dreadnought Boy saw something glitter in his hand as he leaped forward.
It was a revolver that the would-be briber had drawn.
At the same instant, and just as Ned was about to spring forward, the elder man drew from his coat-tail pocket a silver whistle. He placed it to his lips and blew a shrill blast.
Simultaneously four dark forms leaped from behind a sort of summer-house shrouded in creepers, and flung themselves on the inventor.
They bore him to the ground, as the Dreadnought Boy, with a loud shout of:
"Stand clear!" dashed from his place of concealment.
IN THE PULSIFERS' HANDS.
Sinewy and well-muscled as he was, Ned realized a moment later that he was in for such a battle against odds as he had never fought before. Hardly had he made his unexpected appearance and bowled the astonished younger Pulsifer over with a well-directed blow of his fist, before one of the quartet that had downed Mr. Varian sprang upon the lad and gripped him in a strong-armed embrace.
As they swayed back and forth, Ned saw the fellow's features as the two emerged into a patch of moonlight. His astonishment almost caused him to lose his advantageous grip.
"Hank Harkins!" he gasped.
"Yes, Hank Harkins; and this is the time I even up old scores," grated the other, through his close-set teeth.
"Not while I've got two arms," grunted Ned,striving to overset the other. But, as he felt Hank's body bend back and his sinews crack, two of the other men flung themselves on the Dreadnought Boy from behind. A few brief seconds later, Ned, borne down by overwhelming numbers, was a prisoner.
Even as he fell he recognized the two who had come to Hank's aid as Carl Schultz and Ralph Kennell.
"This is the kind of work I should have expected to find you taking part in," sneered Ned, as he lay on his back, his arms and legs pinioned by Hank and Carl Schultz and Kennell's evil face glaring down into his.
"It's the kind of work you'll have no reason to like," grinned Hank meaningly. "I fancy that we'll be able to even up things now."
Ned disdained to answer the fellow, and returned his threats with a stare of cold contempt. The next instant he set up a shout, which was instantly choked back by a rough hand on his throat. Kennell it was who had compressed the Dreadnought Boy's windpipe till breathing became painful.
"Your handkerchief—quick!" Kennell ordered Schultz.
The graceful Schultz brought out a scented piece of linen.
"Now, younker, open your mouth again," ordered Kennell, taking his hand from Ned's throat.
Ned set his teeth firmly, however. Kennell, beside himself with fury, struck him a cowardly blow across the face with his clenched fist. Still Ned's mouth was locked.
The blue-jacket, seeing that it would take too long to force Ned's lips open in that way, then seized hold of the lad's nose, compressing the nostrils. In a short time Ned was compelled to open his mouth to breathe and the handkerchief was then thrust in between his teeth, making an effectual gag.
The Dreadnought Boy was then rudely yanked to his feet. As he stood upright, he noticed a faint, sickly smell in the air.
Chloroform!
The inventor's figure, white-faced and outstretched as though in a deep sleep, lay a few paces away. His stupor showed to what purpose the drug had been put.
"He'll give us no more bother," grinned Pulsifer,nodding in the direction of the recumbent inventor, over whom the scowling Silas stood guard.
"Got any left for the kid, if he gets mussy?" inquired Kennell.
"No, confound it," muttered the younger Pulsifer; "the stuff upset and spilled on the grass."
"I should say it did. The place smells like a medical college," commented Kennell. "Now, guv'nor, where's the gasoline gig?"
"Two of you fellows pick up Varian," ordered Pulsifer, "and follow me. Kennell, you take care of the boy—wherever he came from. Tie his hands. The rig is right outside the rear gate of the grounds."
Ned, helpless as he was, had no recourse but to obey Kennell's rough order to "Look alive." In the meantime the traitorous Silas roped the lad's hands. In a few minutes they reached the back gate. Outside it stood a powerful touring car.
There was a lamp on the rear gate, and Pulsifer, as he went by, reached up to turn it out.
"The less light we have, the better. No knowing who is skulking around," he remarked. Ashe straightened up to reach the lamp, however, his eyes fell on Ned, whose face was illumined momentarily by the light.
Pulsifer gave an exclamation of delight.
"Look who's here, Dave," he cried exultingly; "little Johnny Fixit. Don't you remember him?"
"Why," exclaimed the elder Pulsifer, "that's one of the rowdy kids who tried to get us out of our seats on the subway."
"Tried to," thought Ned; "I guess we came pretty near doing it."
"Oh, this is luck," grinned the younger Pulsifer; "talk about killing two birds with one stone. We'll attend to you, my young friend—you dirty young spy. We'll put you where what you overheard to-night will do you no more good than—this."
He stepped lightly forward and deliberately struck the Dreadnought Boy an open-handed slap on the cheek.
Ned's hands struggled with the rope that Kennell had twisted about his wrists. He palpitated, ached, and longed with a superhuman intensity, to get at the younger Pulsifer, and beat his sneering face into an unrecognizable mass. It was alucky thing for that young man that Kennell had tied his knots with sailor-like thoroughness. In a few minutes—by the time they had been bundled into the tonneau of the machine, in fact—Ned was once more calm. He recognized the stern necessity for keeping absolutely cool.
On the seat beside him in the tonneau lay the senseless form of the inventor. As a guard, Kennell, Schultz and Hank were seated also in that part of the car. Dave Pulsifer took the wheel and his brother sat at his side. Silas, the heavy-browed, occupied the small extension-seat at the elder Pulsifer's side.
With the engine muffled down, till it made scarcely any noise, the car glided off into the night, leaving behind it what Ned could not help feeling was the last hope of rescue.
As the wheels began to revolve, Dave Pulsifer leaned back, and, with one hand, extended to Kennell a revolver.
"If our guests should object to our little surprise party and moonlight ride, just give them a leaden pill," he suggested pleasantly.
"Say, guv'nor, it would be pretty dangerous firing off a gun at this time of night, wouldn'tit? It might bring the alligator-zills, or whatever they call these Cuban cops, about our ears, mightn't it?"
The younger Pulsifer laughed lightly.
"No danger of that," he said. "In ten minutes now we'll be out in a desolate part of the country, inhabited only by a few cattle-grazers, and they've got too much horse-sense to inquire into a casual shot. So don't hesitate to pepper away if our guests get obstreperous."
A few minutes later the car began to bound forward, the elder Pulsifer "opening her up," as they drew out of the few scattered huts on the outskirts of the town. They emerged into an arid, stony region, fringed with low, barren hills, clothed with scanty vegetation. Huge cacti stood up weirdly, like tombstones in the moonlight, and a few half-starved cattle plunged off to both sides of the track as the car sped along.
So far asoneof the prisoners becoming obstreperous was concerned, there was no danger, or immediate danger, at any rate. Henry Varian lay like one dead, with his face of a marble whiteness, in the cold moonlight.
"Say, the guv'nor must have given him a pretty heavy dose," muttered Kennell, bending over theinventor and feeling his heart. "I hope he hasn't overdone it."
"What's the difference?" inquired the soft-voiced Carl, in a casual way. "We find plendy of places alretty vere ve get rid off him if he dond come back."
"I don't know. I don't care much about taking such chances," muttered Kennell; "killing a man is bad business. I should think you and Silas would realize that, after your escape——"
"Hush! der boy hear!" warned Schultz, holding up a thin, white hand.
Kennell subsided with a growl of "what's the difference," but said no more, to Ned's intense disappointment.
It was no trick of their eyesight, then, when the two Dreadnought Boys had recognized in the two pictured convicts, at the biograph exhibition, their two dastardly shipmates. Moreover, it seemed, from what Kennell had let drop, that both men were jail-breakers. Revolving this in his mind, Ned saw the cunningness of the two men's movements, if they had actually escaped from Joliet. What less likely place to find an escaped prisoner than in the United States navy? They must have forged papers of recommendationand character, and thus tricked the careful authorities. In fact, Ned learned later that this was the case.
On and on droned the car, speeding through the same monotonous moonlit wastes of hills and scrub-grass—with here and there the gaunt form of a tall royal palm—as it had encountered on leaving the scattered outskirts of the town. All the time Ned had been working feverishly, but quietly, at his bonds, and now he began to feel what at first he scarcely dared believe—the ropes were becoming slightly loosened. In ten minutes more he had stretched the new rope, of which the thongs were made, till he could slip them off by dint of rubbing them against the cushion at his back.
His mind was made up as to what he would do the instant he found himself at liberty to make his escape. He would drop from the car and trust to luck to get away. The surface of the hills was rough and creased with numerous deep gullies. If he could get into one of these, it would be impossible for the auto to follow, and on foot—well, Ned had a few records for sprinting behind him, and he was confident he could outdistance any one of the occupants of the car.
He looked about him. The car was at this moment passing quite near to one of the arroyos—as they are called in our West—that Ned had noted. Kennell, his eyes half-closed, was hunched in a doze, the pistol in his lap. Carl Schultz and Hank Harkins were talking in low tones. Not a single one of them was watching the Dreadnought Boy.
The moment to carry out his plan, if he was to put it into execution at all, had arrived.
With a quick move, Ned slipped off his thongs, and sprang to his feet.
Before any one of the occupants of the tonneau knew what was happening he was out of the auto and sprinting, as he had never sprinted before for the friendly darkness of the gully.
Angry shouts instantly broke out. The gully seemed farther than Ned had judged.
He had gained its edge, and, with a grateful prayer, was about to slide over into security, when he felt a sharp twinge in his right calf. At the same moment he heard the sharp crack of a revolver behind him.
Nobody had ever accused Kennell of being a bad shot, and he had aimed true this time.
Ned doubled up.
He was halted by unbearable pain. In another instant his pursuers had seized him with exulting cries.
THREE MINUTES OF LIFE.
Before the first sharp sting of the wound that had halted the Dreadnought Boy had subsided, Ned found himself once more a prisoner. He had torn the gag from his mouth as he ran; but he made no effort to shout, knowing that it would do no good in that desolate region. He calmly submitted to being rebound, this time his legs also being tied tightly.
"We'll take no further chances with you, my young rooster," commented Kennell, as he made a double half-hitch on Ned's leg thongs; "but you were a greeny to think you could get away as long as Ralph Kennell could hold a gun."
Although the wound in his leg gave him acute pain, Ned was pretty sure it was only a flesh one, and had not shattered the bone; for which he felt thankful. Ned was made of that kind of stuff that never gives up hope, and, even in the desperate position in which he now was, he yetdecided to make the best of it and watch for any chance that might present itself to extricate himself.
"Come on, come on," growled the elder Pulsifer, as Ned was once more hustled roughly into the tonneau of the machine. "We can't waste all night on that cub. Silas and Carl told us that you were a good fast worker. We're not paying you to take all night over it."
"All right, guv'nor; keep your shirt on," rejoined Kennell; "let her rip. We've got him hog-tied now, all right."
Not long after, the auto shot into a dark, shadowed cañon, which seemed to bisect the range of rugged hills, and came to a halt on the other side. The stop was made before a small house, built in the native style, in front of which stood a row of royal palms.
"Home, sweet home," grinned Kennell, with grim humor; "come on, younker, pile out, there."
Ned almost yelled with pain as he straightened up on his injured leg, and Kennell, noticing him wince, gave a loud, brutal laugh.
"Hamstrung, by the great bow-gun!" he exclaimed. "I guess you'll give us no more trouble."
To Ned's relief, for he had almost begun to share Kennell's belief that Varian had been over-drugged, the inventor had opened his eyes a few moments before they reached the hut, and murmured feebly. His words lacked sense, however, under the influence of the drug as he still was.
"Bring them both into the front room," ordered the elder Pulsifer, as he climbed down from the driver's seat.
The "front room," it transpired, was a sparsely furnished apartment, containing a table and two or three chairs, and nothing else. The floors were bare and of polished wood after the manner of the country. Ned guessed that the place was occupied only temporarily by the Pulsifers as a quiet spot in which they could meet their agents, secure from outside observation. The fact that they had brought an auto to this part of Cuba, where horses are mostly used, lent color to this supposition.
Dave Pulsifer's first act was to light a lamp, which he placed on the table; his second, to ignite a cigar, and his next to offer a chair to the white and shaky inventor.
"Sit down, Varian," he said. "We don't wish to injure you, or hurt you unless we have to;but, as you wouldn't talk business over quietly, we have had to adopt these means of bringing you to terms."
Glad enough of a chance to rest, Mr. Varian slipped wearily into the offered chair. Ned was shoved along by Kennell till he stood behind the inventor with Kennell close at his elbow. Since his frustrated escape, the wretches who held him captive were taking no chances of another runaway.
Schultz, Silas, and Hank Harkins stood behind the younger Pulsifer, who had now joined his brother at the opposite side of the table to that at which Mr. Varian's chair had been placed. Before the younger of the worthy pair of brothers lay a revolver convenient to his hand. As he regarded Mr. Varian intently, his jeweled fingers played with its butt suggestively.
The inventor made no reply to the elder Pulsifer's remarks, and the foreign agent—as he now stood revealed—continued in a sharp tone. This time he came right to the point.
"Varian, we need not beat about the bush now. We want those plans and the formula."
"I have not got them," replied the inventor, in a low, shaky voice.
"You lie!"
It was a sure indication of Mr. Varian's pitiable condition that he made no move or spoke no word at the insult.
"You searched my pockets before you forced that stuff over my face," he breathed. "You know that I have not got them."
"Again I say you lie. You were consulting with Captain Dunham, of the DreadnoughtManhattan, earlier this evening. You were seen to show him the papers, and explain some of the points of the test which is to be made of your gun shortly. Come, we don't want to be unnecessarily rough with you. Are you going to give the papers up?"
"No!"
The answer snapped out like the crack of a whip.
Ned noted with satisfaction that the inventor's former fire and decision seemed to be returning.
"Then we must search you. Men——"
The elder Pulsifer pointed to the inventor, while the younger covered him with the revolver. One of the latter's bediamonded fingers was crooked on the trigger as if he longed to pull it.
Instantly Carl Schultz, Silas and Hank, who had all three started forward at the command, seized and held Mr. Varian tightly, while the younger Pulsifer, still with his revolver in hand, tapped the inventor's coat to find the hiding-place of the papers.
"Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly, with a cry of triumph. A crisp, crackling sound had rewarded his search.
An instant later, from a secret pocket in the inventor's coat, he had drawn forth a flat bundle of papers. The two Pulsifers, their eyes shining greedily, scanned them closely beneath the lamp, and then uttered what was a perfect howl of baffled rage.
The blueprints of the breech-block, without which the gun would be useless and the formula so much waste-paper, were not there.
"Look here, Varian," snarled the elder Pulsifer, "we've been pretty lenient with you, so far. We intend to be so no longer. Where are those blueprints?"
"Where you will never get them," bravely replied the inventor.
"You are overconfident, my friend," sneeredthe elder Pulsifer. "We not only will get them, but by your own lips you will tell us where to go to acquire them."
If the faces of the Pulsifers had borne an evil look before, they became as avid as those of vultures now.
The inventor, who was fast overcoming the effects of the drug, folded his arms defiantly, his captors having released him when the search was given up by the younger Pulsifer.
"Bind him!"
The command was snapped out by the elder of the brothers.
Instantly the three hired rascals who had held him before pounced on the inventor, and roped him tightly in the chair.
Resistance was useless, and the inventor submitted to the ordeal with an unflinching countenance.
"Now, then, Varian, have you changed your mind?"
"Not yet; and I never shall if you wish to know, Dave Pulsifer."
"Very well. We have tried fair means, now we'll adopt other tactics."
The Pulsifers whispered together a few minutes, and then the younger brother left the room.
He returned with a fair-sized keg, which seemed to be heavy. This he placed in a corner of the room.
"What on earth are they going to do?" Ned wondered to himself.
He was not to be left long in doubt.
The younger Pulsifer's next move was to open a cupboard in one corner of the room and produce a short length of candle.
He eyed this critically and then produced a silver match-box.
A tense silence hung over the room, as the flabby-faced Pulsifer moved about making these preparations. Both Mr. Varian and Ned eyed him with close attention. They felt that somehow or other, incomprehensible as these preparations were, that they boded no good to themselves.
The younger Pulsifer lit the candle and then turned to the two captives with a smile.
"This candle will burn, roughly speaking, for five minutes," he said. "I am going to place it in this barrel of powder. The stuff is not as powerful as Chaosite, but it will serve the purpose,"he added, with a side glance at the inventor.
As he spoke, the wretch ripped off the wooden heading of the barrel, which had already been loosened, and placed the candle upright on its contents.
This done, he once more turned to the inventor.
"Now, will you tell us where those blueprints are, and give us an order for them?" he snarled.
"Not in the longest day you ever lived," replied the inventor firmly.
"Good for you," shouted Ned; "if we are to go to the bottom we'll go down with colors flying, Mr. Varian."
"That's right, my boy; spoken like a true jackie of Uncle Sam," said the inventor approvingly.
"Very fine, heroic and melodramatic," sneered Dave Pulsifer, "but think a moment, Henry Varian. That candle is getting shorter. In a few seconds we shall withdraw, not wishing to be present at the final act of the tragedy. Think of your wife and children——"
This time the inventor groaned, but an instant later recovered himself.
"I would rather leave them the memory of aloyal citizen and American, than give them the companionship of a coward and a traitor," he replied.
"More heroics; really, Varian, if you were going to live, you might tackle a melodrama with good success. Come on, boys. Two minutes of time are up. In three minutes more this place and those in it will be blown to pieces. Good-night and—good-by, Varian, and you too, you spying, sneaking, informing cub. If you relent, Varian, shout loud, and we shall hear you."
With this bitter fling at the Dreadnought Boy, the Pulsifers and their evil companions withdrew, Hank Harkins pausing at the door to remark:
"I guess I'm on top now, Ned Strong."
Ned disdained to reply, but, instead, as the door closed behind the men who had planned such a refinement of cruelty, he fixed his eyes on the candle in the barrel. Pulsifer had taken the lamp when he and the others withdrew. The light of the waxen illuminant, that was rapidly growing shorter and nearer to the powder, was the only radiance in the room.
"In three minutes," Pulsifer had said.
Ned's eyes regarded the flickering candle with a look of despair.
It grew lower and flickered. One more such wavering of its steady flame and the end must come.