SHOWING THE ROUTE TAKEN BY TOM AND ARCHER.SHOWING THE ROUTE TAKEN BY TOM AND ARCHER.
There is nothing like a map to show one "where he is at," to quote Archer's phrase, and the boys followed with great interest as Melotte penciled the course of the Rhine and the places which he wished to emphasize in the southern part of Alsace.
"Here at Norne lives my comrade, Blondel," he said. "Two years we work togezzer at Passake—you know? In ze great silk mills."
"Passaic," said Tom; "that's near Bridgeboro, where I live."
"Passake, yess. So now you are so clevaire to know who shall leeve in a house, I will tell you how you shall know ze house of my comrade, Blondel.By ze blue flag with one black spot!Yess? You know what ziss shall be?Billet!" He gave Archer a dig in the ribs as if this represented the high water mark of sagacity.
"Oh, I know," said Archer; "it means Gerrman officerrs are billeted therre. Go-o-odnight! Not for us!"
The old man did not seem quite to understand, but he turned again to his map. "Here now is ze new road," he said, drawing it with his shaky old hand. "From ze Rhine road it runs—south—so. Now you are so clevaire—Yankee clevaire, ha, ha, ha!" he laughed with a kind of irritating hilarity; "why should zey make ziss road? From ze north—from Leteur—allaround—zey bring our women to make ziss road. Ziss is where Mam'selle is—so! Close by it lives my comrade, Blondel. Ziss is noble army to command, ugh!" He gritted his teeth. "All are women!"
Tom looked at the map, as old Melotte poised his skinny finger above it and peered eagerly up into his face from the depths of his scraggly white hair. It was little enough Tom knew about military affairs and he thought that this lonesome old weaver was in his dotage. But surely this new road could be for but one purpose, and that was the quick transfer of troops from the Alsatian front to the Swiss border. And the sudden conscription of women and girls for the making of the road seemed plausible enough. Could it be that this furnished a clew to the whereabouts of Florette Leteur? And if it did, what hope was there of reaching her, or of rescuing her?
He listened only abstractedly to the old man's rambling talk of Germany's intention to violate Swiss neutrality if that became necessary to her purpose. His eyes were half closed as he looked at the rough sketch and he saw there considerably more than old Melotte had drawn.
He saw Frenchy's sister Florette, slender andfrail, wielding some heavy implement, doing her enforced bit in this work of shameless betrayal. He could see her eyes, sorrow-laden and filled with fear. He could see her as she had stood talking with him that night in the arbor. He could see her, orphaned and homeless, slaving under the menacing shadow of a German officer who sprawled and lorded it in the poor home of this Blondel close by the new road.Here he climb to drop ze grapes down my neck. Bad boy!Strange, how that particular phrase of hers singled itself out and stuck in his memory.
"So now you are soclevaire," he half heard old Melotte saying to Archer.
And Tom Slade said nothing, only thought, and thought, and thought....
CHAPTER XVIITHE CLOUDS GATHER
"We never thought about asking him to translate that letterr," said Archer.
"I'm not thinking about that letter," Tom answered. "All I'm thinking about now is what he said about that new road. I'm not even thinking about their going through Switzerland, either," he added with great candor. "I'm thinking about Frenchy's sister. If they've got her working there I'm going to rescue her. I made up my mind to that."
"Some job!" commented Archer.
"It don't make any difference how much of a job it is," said Tom, with that set look about his mouth that Archer was coming to know and respect.
They were clambering up the hillside again, for not all old Melotte's hospitable urging could induce Tom to remain in the hut until daylight.
He would have liked to take along the roughsketch which the old man had made, but this Melotte had strenuously opposed, saying that no maps should be carried by strangers in Germany. So Tom had to content himself with the old man's rather rambling directions.
Several things remained indelibly impressed on his mind. Old Melotte had told him that upon the western bank of the Rhine about fifteen miles above the Swiss border was an old gray castle with three turrets, and that directly opposite this and not far from the Alsatian bank was the little village of Norne.
"The way I make it out," said Archer, "is that this Blondel, whoeverr he is, has got some Gerrman officerr wished on him and that geezerr has charrge of the women worrking on the new road. I'd like to know how you expect to get within a mile of those people in the daytime."
"We got plenty of time to think it out," Tom answered doggedly, "'cause we'll be in the woods a couple of days and nights and that's where thoughts come to you."
"We'd be big fools, afterr gettin' all the way down to the frontierr to cross the riverr and go huntin' forr a road in broad daylight," said Archer; "we'd only get caught."
"Well, we'll get caught then," retorted Tom.
"Anyway, I think the old fellow's half crazy," Archer persisted. "He's got roads on the brain. He jumps all around from Norrne to Passaic and——"
"He gave us something to eat," said Tom curtly.
"Well, I didn't say he didn't, did I?" Archer snapped. "If we'd had any sense, we'd have stayed therre all night like he wanted us to. Therre wouldn't have been any dangerr in that old shack, a hundred miles from nowherre."
"We're safest in the hills," said Tom.
"It's going to rain, too," Archer grumbled.
Tom made no answer and they scrambled in silence up the uninviting hillside, till old Melotte's shack could be seen far below with the dim light in its windows.
"You'rre so particularr about not bein' caught," Archer began again, "it's a wonder you wouldn't think morre about that when we get down close to the borrderr. If I've got to be caught at all I'd ratherr be caught now."
They had regained the height above the little hamlet and to the south they could see the clustering lights of Strassbourg and here and there a moving light upon the river.
"We've got to cross that, too, I s'pose," Archer said sulkily.
Tom did not answer. The plain fact was that they were both thoroughly tired out, with that dog-tiredness which comes suddenly as a reaction after days of nerve-racking apprehension and hard physical effort. For the first two days their nervous excitement had kept them up. But now they were fagged and the tempting invitation to remain at the hovel had been too strong for Archer. Moreover, this new scheme of Tom's to divert their course in a hazardous quest for Florette Leteur was not at all to his liking. But mostly he was tired and everything looks worse when one is tired.
"We're not going to keep on hiking it tonight, are we?" he demanded.
"You said yourself that the old man was kind of—a little off, like," Tom answered patiently. "He's got the bug that he's very shrewd and that he can always get the best of the Germans. Do you think I'd take a chance staying there? We took a chance as it was."
"Yes, and you'rre going to take a biggerr one if you go chasing all over Gerrmany after that girrl. You won't find herr. That was a lot of rattlebrain talk anyway—we'reso clevaire!"
"There's no use making fun of him," said Tom; "he helped us."
"We'll get caught, that'll be the end of it," said Archer sullenly. Tom did not answer.
"You seem to be the boss of everything, anyway."
They scrambled diagonally down the eastern slope of the high ground, heading always toward the river and after an hour's travelling came out upon its shore.
"Here's where we'll have to cross if we're going to cross at all," said Tom. "What do you say?"
"Ihaven't got anything to say," said Archer; "you'redoin' all the saying."
"If we go any farther south," Tom went on patiently, "we'll be too near Strassbourg and we're likely to meet boats. Listen."
From across the river came the spent whistle of a locomotive accompanied by the rattling of a hurrying train, the steady sound, thin and clear in the still night, mingling with its own echoes. A few lights, widely separated, were visible across the water and one, high up, reassured Tom that the mountains, the foothills of which they had followed, continued at no great distance from the opposite shore.
There were welcoming fastnesses over there, heknew, and a dim, wide belt of forest extending southward. There, safe from the haunts of men, or at least with timely warning of any hamlets nestling in those sombre depths, he and his comrade might press southward toward that promised land, the Swiss border.
Yet, strangely enough (for one side of a river is pretty much like the other) Tom felt a certain regret at the thought of leaving Alsace. Perhaps his memory of the Leteurs had something to do with this. Perhaps he had just the boyish feeling that it would change their luck. And he knew that over there he would be truly in the enemy's country, with the magic of his little talisman vanished in air.
Yet right here he must decide between open roads and stealthy hospitality and that silent, embracing hospitality which the lonesome heights would offer. And he decided in favor of the lonesome heights. Perhaps after all it was not the enemy's country, though the names of Baden and Schwarzwald certainly had a hostile sound.
But the rugged mountains and dim woods are never enemies of the scout, and perhaps Tom Slade of Temple Camp felt that even the Schwarzwald, which is the Black Forest, would forget its allegiance to whisper its secrets in his ear.
CHAPTER XVIIIIN THE RHINE
"What do you say?" said Tom. "It's up to both of us."
"Oh, don't mind me," Archer answered sarcastically. "Idon't count. I know one thing—I'mgoing to head straight for the Swiss borderr. If crossing the river herre's the quickest way to do it, then that's what I'm going to do, you can bet!"
For a moment Tom did not speak, then looking straight at Archer, he said,—
"You don't forget how she helped us, do you?"
"I'm not saying anything about that," said Archer. "My duty's to Uncle Sam. You've got thecrazynotion now that you want to rescue a girrl, just like fellerrs do in story books. If you'rre going to be thinking about herr all the time I might as well go by myself. I could get along all right, if it comes to that."
"Well, I couldn't," said Tom, with a note of earnestness in his voice. "Anyway, there's no useof our scrapping about it 'cause I don't suppose we'll find her. As long as we're going south through the mountains we might as well see if we can pick out Norne with the glass. Maybe we could even see that feller Blondel's house. The old man said the west slopes of the mountains were steep and that they run close to the river down there, so we ought to be able to pick out Norne with the glass. There isn't any harm in that, is there?" he added conciliatingly, "as long as we've got the glass?"
Archer maintained a sullen silence.
"I know we've got to think about Uncle Sam, and I know you're patriotic," said Tom generously, "and we can't afford to be taking big chances. But if you had known her brother, you'd feel the way I do—that's one sure thing."
"I wouldn't run the risk of getting pinched and sent back to prison just on account of a girrl," said Archer scornfully. "That's one sure thing," he added, sulkily mimicking Tom's phrase.
"That ain't the way it is," said Tom, flushing a little. "I ain't—if that's what you mean. Anyway, I admit we got to be careful, and I promise you if we can't spy out the house and the road with the glass I won't cross the river again till we get to the border."
"First thing you know somebody'll come along if we keep on standing here," said Archer.
"Here, you take one of these rubber gloves," said Tom. "Shut the glass and see if it'll go inside. I'll put the flashlight and the compass in the other one. It's going to rain, too. Here, let me do it," he added rather tactlessly, as he closed the little telescope and forced its smaller end down into the longest of the big glove fingers. "Twist the top of it and turn the edges over, see?" he added, doing it himself, "and it's watertight. I can make a watertight stopple for a bottle with a long strip of paper, but you got to know how to wind it," he added, with clumsy disregard of his companion's mood. Tom was a hopeless bungler in some ways.
"Oh, surre,youcan do anything," said Archer.
"Maybe it would be best if you held it in your teeth," said Tom thoughtfully; "unless you can swim with it in your hand."
The compass and the flashlight, which indeed were more susceptible of damage from the water than the precious glass, were encased in the other rubber glove, and the two fugitives waded out into the black, silent river.
Scarcely had their feet left the bottom when the first drop of rain fell upon Tom's head, and a chillgust of wind caught him and bore him a yard or two out of his course. He spluttered and looked about for Archer, but could see nothing in the darkness. He did not want to call for he knew how far voices carry across the water, and though the spot was isolated he would take no chances.
It rained hard and the wind, rising to a gale, lashed the black water into whitecaps. Tom strove vainly to make headway against the storm, but felt himself carried, willy-nilly, he knew not where. He tried to distinguish the light beyond the Baden shore, which he had selected for a beacon, but he could not find it. At last he called to Archer.
"I'm going to turn back," he said; "come on—are you all right?"
If Archer answered his voice was drowned by the wind and rain. For a few moments Tom struggled against the elements, hoping to regain the Alsatian shore. His one guiding instinct in all the hubbub was the conviction that the wind smelled like an east wind and that it ought to carry him back to the nearer shore. He would have given a good deal for a glimpse of his precious little compass now.
"Where are you?" he called again. "The light's gone. Let the wind carry you back—it's east."
He could hear no answer save the mocking windand the breaking of the water. This latter sound made him think the shore was not far distant. But when, after a few moments, he did not feel the bottom, his heart sank. He had been lost in the woods and as a tenderfoot he had known the feeling of panic despair. And he had been in the ocean and seen his ship go down with a torpedo's jagged rent in her side. But he had never been lost in the water in the sense of losing all his bearings in the darkness. For a minute it quite unnerved him and his stout heart sank within him.
Then out of the tumult came a thin, spent voice, barely audible and seeming a part of the troubled voices of the night.
"——lost——," it said; "——going down——"
Tom listened eagerly, his heart still, his blood cold within him.
"Keep calling," he answered, "so I'll know where you are. I'll get to you all right—keep your nerve."
He listened keenly, ready to challenge the force of the storm with all his young skill and strength, and thinking of naught else now. But no guiding voice answered.
Could he have heard aright? Surely, there was no mistaking. It was a human voice that had spokenand whatever else it had said that one, tragic word had been clearly audible:
"——down——"
Archer had gone down.
CHAPTER XIXTOM LOSES HIS FIRST CONFLICT WITH THE ENEMY
"Down!"
For the first time in Tom Slade's life a sensation of utter despair gripped him and it was not until several seconds had elapsed, while he was tossed at the mercy of the storm, that he was able to get a grip on himself. He struck out frantically and for just a brief minute was guilty of a failing which he had never yielded to—the perilous weakness of being rattled and hitting hard at nothing. In swimming, above all things, this is futile and dangerous, and presently Tom regained his mental poise and struck out calmly, swimming in the direction in which the wind bore him, for there was nothing else to do. Not that his effort helped him much, but he knew the good rule that one should never be passive in a crisis, for inaction is as depressing to the spirit as frantic exertion is to the body. And he knew that by swimming he could keep his "morale"—a word which he had heard a good deal lately.
His heart was sick within him and a kind of cold desperation seized him. Archer, whom he had known away back home in America, whom he had found by chance in the German prison camp, who had trudged over the hills and through the woods with him, was lost. He would never see him again. Archer, who was always after souvenirs....
These were not thoughts exactly, but they flitted through Tom's consciousness as he struggled to keep his head clear of the tempestuous waters. And even in his own desperate plight he recalled that their last words had been words of discord, for he knew now (generous as he was) thathewas to blame for this dreadful end of all their fine hopes—that Archer had been right—they should have stayed at Melotte's hovel. Amid the swirl of the waters, as he swam he knew not where, he remembered how Archer had said he ought to think of his duty to Uncle Sam and not imperil his chance to help by going after Florette Leteur.
He was sick, utterly sick, and nearer to hopelessness than he had ever been in his life; but he struck out in a kind of mechanical resignation, believing that the wind and the trend of the water must bring him to one shore or the other before he was exhausted. There was no light anywhere, no clew or beaconof any sort in that wild blackness, and since he therefore had no reason to oppose his strength to the force of the storm he swam steadily in the direction in which it carried him. It made no difference. Nothing mattered now....
After a while the noise of the lashing changed to that lapping sound which only contact with the land can give, and soon Tom could distinguish a solid mass outlined in the hollow blackness of the night. He had no guess whether it was the Baden or the Alsatian shore that he was approaching nor how far north or south he had been carried. Nor did he much care.
His foot touched something hard which brought him to the realization that he must lessen the force of his advance or perhaps have his life dashed out upon a rocky shore; and presently he was staggering forward, brushing his hair away from his eyes, wondering where he was, and scarcely sensible of anything—his head throbbing, his whole body on the verge of exhaustion.
"It's my fault—anyway—I got to admit it——" he thought, "and—it serves—me—right."
One firm resolution came to him. Now that Providence had seen fit to cast him ashore, if he was to be permitted to continue his flight alone, he wouldgo straight for his goal, the Swiss border, and not be led astray (that is what he called it,led astray) by any other enterprise. His duty as a soldier, and he thought of himself as a soldier now, was clear. His business was to help Uncle Sam win the war and he must leave it to Uncle Sam to put an end to the stealing of young girls and to restore them to their homes. He saw himself now, as Archer had depicted him, in the silly role of a "story book hero" and he felt ashamed. He knew that General Pershing would not have sent him rescuing girls, and that the best way he could help France, and even the Leteurs, was to hurry up and get into the trenches where he belonged. Yes, Archer was right. And with a pang of remorse Tom remembered how Archer had said it, "rescuing a girrl!" He would never hear Archer talk like that any more....
He had more than once been close enough to death to learn to keep his nerve in the presence of it, but the loss of his companion quite unnerved him. It had not occurred to him that anythingcouldhappen to Archer, who claimed himself that he always landed right side up because he was lucky. Tom could not realize that he was gone.
Still, comrades were lost to each other every day in that far-flung trench line and in that bloody seaof northern France friends were parted and many went down.
"Down——"
How that awful word had sounded—long drawn out and faint in the storm and darkness!
He stumbled over a rocky space and ran plunk into something solid. As he looked up he could distinguish the top of it; uneven and ragged it seemed against the blackness of the night. Whatever it was, it seemed to be slender and rather high, and the odd thought came to him that he was on the deck of some mammoth submarine, looking up at the huge conning tower. Perhaps it was because hehadonce been rescued by a submarine, or perhaps just because his wits were uncertain and his nerves unstrung, but it was fully a minute before he realized that he was on solid earth—or rock. It afforded him a measure of relief.
What that grim black thing could be that frowned upon him he did not know, and he staggered around it, feeling it with his hands. It was of masonry and presently he came to what was evidently a door, which opened as he leaned against it. Its silent hospitality was not agreeable to him; the very thought of a possible German habitation roused him out of his fatigue and despair, and with a sudden quick instincthe drew stealthily back until presently he felt the water lapping his feet again.
Here, at a comparatively safe distance, he paused for breath after what he felt to be a worse peril than the storm, and felt for the one trusty friend he had left—the little compass. The precious rubber glove containing this and the flashlight was safe in his pocket, and he held both under his coat and tried to throw the light upon the compass and get his bearings. But the glove must have leaked, for the battery was dead. The little compass, which was to prove so useful in days to come, was probably still loyal after its immersion, but he could not distinguish the dial clearly.
He knew he must go southeast, where the dim woods seemed now to beckon him like a living mother. Never had the thought of the mountains and the lonely forest been so grateful to this scout before. If only he had strength to get there....
"What yougotto do—you do," he panted slowly under his breath, frowning at the compass and trying in the darkness to see which way that faithful little needle turned. Once, twice, he looked fearfully up toward that grim building.
Then he decided, as best he might, which direction was southeast and dragged his aching legs thatway until presently he was stumbling in the water again.
Surely, he thought, the river ran almost north and south, and southeastmustlead on into the mountains. But perhaps he had not read the compass aright or perhaps he was on the edge of a deep bay, which would mean water extending still westward. Or perhaps he was on the Alsatian shore.
For a moment he stood bewildered. Then he tried to read the compass again and started forward in the direction which he thought to be west. If he were on the Alsatian shore, this should take him away from that black, heartless Teuton ruin.
But it only took him into a chaos of broken, shiny rock where he stumbled and fell, cutting his knee and making his head throb cruelly.
And then Tom Slade, seeing that fate was against him, and having used all the resource and young strength that he had, to get to the boys "over there," gave up and lay among the jagged rocks, holding his head with one bruised hand and thinking hopelessly of this end of all his efforts.
CHAPTER XXA NEW DANGER
He did not know how long he lay there, but after a while he crept along over the slimy rocks and because it was not easy to stand alone he limped to that grim, threatening structure, and leaned against it, trying to collect his faculties.
"If he was—only here now," he breathed, half aloud, "I'd let him—I'd be willing not to be boss—like he said. That's the—trouble—with me—I'm always wanting to—be——Oh, my head——"
He knew now, what it was a pretty hard thing for one of his indomitable temperament to realize, that things were out of his hands, that he could go no farther. North or south or east or west, he could go no farther. Capture or firing squad or starvation and death from exhaustion, he could go no farther. His name would not be sent home on the casualty lists, any more than Archer's would, but they hadtried, and done their bit as well as they could.
There was one faint hope left; perhaps this house was not occupied, or if it was on the Alsatian side of that terrible river (a true Hun river, if there ever was one) it might be occupied by a Frenchman. Scarcely knowing what he was doing, Tom pushed the door open and staggered inside. Dazed and suffering as he was, he was conscious of the rain pelting on the roof above him and sounding more audibly than outside where the boisterous river drowned the sound of the downpour.
Something big and soft which caught in his feet was directly before him and he stumbled and fell upon it. And there he lay, pressing his throbbing forehead, which seemed bursting with fresh pain from the force of his fall.
He had a reckless impulse to end all doubt by calling aloud in utter abandonment. But this impulse passed, perhaps because he did not have the strength or spirit to call.
Soon, from mere exhaustion, he fell into a fitful, feverish slumber accompanied by a nightmare in which the lashing of the wind and rain outside were conjured into the clangor and hoof beats of cavalry and he was hopelessly enmeshed in a barbed-wire entanglement.
With the first light of dawn he saw that he waslying upon a mass of fishnet and that his feet and arms were entangled in its meshes.
He was in a small, circular apartment with walls of masonry and a broken spiral stairway leading up to a landing beside a narrow window. Rain streamed down from this window and trickled in black rivulets all over the walls. A very narrow doorway opened out of this circular room, from which the door was broken away, leaving two massive wrought-iron hinges sticking out conspicuously into the open space. As Tom's eyes fell upon these he thought wistfully of how eagerly Archer would have appropriated one of them as a "souveneerr." Poor, happy-go-lucky Archer!
"I thought he was a good swimmer," Tom thought, "because he lived so near Black Lake.[A]It was all my fault. He probably just didn't like to say he wasn't——"
[A]The lake on the shore of which Temple Camp was situated.
[A]The lake on the shore of which Temple Camp was situated.
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ease the pain in his head and collect his scattered senses. Evidently, he was alone in this dank place, for there was no sign of occupancy nor any sound but the light patter of rain without, for the storm had spent its fury and subsided into a steady drizzle.
He dragged himself to his feet, and though his knee was stiff he was glad to discover that he was not incapable of walking. He believed he was not feverish now and that his headache was caused by shock and bruising rather than by illness. Perhaps, he thought, he was not so badly off after all. Except for Archer....
Limping to the doorway he peered cautiously out. The sky was dull and hazy and a steady, drizzling rain fell. There is something about a drear, rainy day which "gets" one, if he has but a makeshift shelter; and this bleak, gray morning carried poor Tom's mind back with a rush to rainy days at his beloved Temple Camp when scouts were wont to gather in tent and cabin for yarns.
He now saw that he was on a little rocky islet in the middle of the river and that the structure which had sheltered him was a small tower, very much like a lighthouse except that it was not surmounted by a light, having instead that rough turret coping familiar in medieval architecture. Far off, through the haze, he could distinguish, close to the shore, a gray castle with turrets, which from his compass he knew to be on the Baden side. He thought he could make out a road close to the shore, and other houses, and he wished that he had the spy-glass so that hemight study this locality which he hoped to pass through.
Of course, he no longer cherished any hope of finding Florette Leteur; Archer's chiding words still lingered in his mind, and, moreover, without the glass he could do nothing for he certainly would never have thought of entering Norne without first "piking" it from a safe vantage point.
There was nothing to do now but nurse his swollen knee and rest, in the hope that by night he would be able to swim to the Baden shore and get into the hills. Never before had he so longed for the forest.
"If it wasn't for—for him being lost," he told himself, as he limped back into the tower, "I wouldn't be so bad off. There's nobody lives here, that's sure. Maybe fishermen come here, but nobody'll come today, I'll bet."
After all, luck had not been unqualifiedly against him, he thought. Here he was in an isolated spot in the wide river. What was the purpose of this little tower on its pile of rocks he could not imagine, but it was fast going to ruin and save for the rotting fishing seine there was no sign of human occupancy.
If only Archer were there it would not be half bad. But the thought of his companion's loss sickened him and robbed the lonely spot of such aspectof security as it might otherwise have had for him. Still, he must go on, he must reach the boys in France, and fight for Archer too, now—Archer, whom his own blundering had consigned to death in these treacherous waters....
He looked out again through the doorway at the dull sky, and the rain falling steadily upon the sullen water. It was a day to chill one's spirit and sap one's courage. The whole world looked gray and cheerless. Again, as on the night before, he heard the rattle of a train in the distance. High up through the drenched murky air, a bird sped across the river, and somehow its disappearance among the hills left Tom with a sinking feeling of utter desolation. In Temple Camp, on a day like this, they would be in Roy Blakeley's tent, telling stories....
"Anyway, it's better to be alone than in some German's house," he tried to cheer himself. "We—I—kept away from 'em so far, anyway——"
He stopped, holding his breath, with every muscle tense, and his heart sank within him. For out of that inner doorway came a sound—a sound unmistakably human—tragically human, it seemed now, shattering his returning courage and leaving him hopeless.
It was the sound of some one coughing!
CHAPTER XXICOMPANY
Ordinarily Tom Slade would have stopped to think and would have kept his nerve and acted cautiously; but he had not sufficiently recovered his poise to meet this emergency wisely. He knew he could not swim away, that capture was now inevitable, and instead of pausing to collect himself he gave way to an impulse which he had never yielded to before, an impulse born of his shaken nerves and stricken hope and the sort of recklessness which comes from despair. What did it matter? Fate was against him....
With a kind of defiant abandonment he limped to the little stone doorway and stood there like an apparition, clutching the sides with trembling hands. But whatever reckless words of surrender he meant to offer froze upon his lips, and he swayed in the opening, staring like a madman.
For reclining upon a rough bunk, with kneesdrawn up, was Archibald Archer, busily engaged in whittling a stick, his freckled nose wrinkling up in a kind of grotesque accompaniment to each movement of his hand against the hard wood.
"I—I thought——" Tom began.
"Well,—I'll—be——" countered Archer.
For a moment they stared at each other in blank amaze. Then a smile crept over Tom's face, a smile quite as unusual with him as his sudden spirit of surrender had been; a smile of childish happiness. He almost broke out laughing from the reaction.
"Are you carvin' a souvenir?" he said foolishly.
"No, I ain't carrvin' no souveneerr," Archer answered. "Therre's fish among those rocks and I'm goin' to spearr 'em."
"You ain't carvin' awhat!" said Tom.
"I ain't carrvin' a souveneerr," Archer said with the familiar Catskill Mountain roll to his R's.
"I just wanted to hear you say it," said Tom, limping over to him and for the first time in his life yielding to the weakness of showing sentiment.
"All night long," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bunk, "I was thinkin' how you said it—and it sounds kind of good——"
"How'd you make out in the riverr?" Archer asked.
"You can't even sayriver," said Tom, laughing foolishly in his great relief.
"It was some storrm, all right! But I got the matches safe anyway, and they'll strike, 'cause I tried one."
"You ought to have made a whisk stick[A]to try it," said Tom, then caught himself up suddenly. "But I ain't going to tell you what you ought to do any more. I'm goin' to stop bossin'."
[A]A stick the end of which is separated into fine shavings which readily catch the smallest flame, a familiar device used by scouts.
[A]A stick the end of which is separated into fine shavings which readily catch the smallest flame, a familiar device used by scouts.
"I got yourr spy-glass forr you," said Archer. "I had to dive f'rr't. Didn't you hearr me call to you it was lost and I was goin' down f'rr't?"
"——lost——down——"
The tragic words flitted again through Tom's mind, and he reached out and took Archer's hand hesitatingly as if ashamed of the feeling it implied.
"What'd you do that for? You were a fool," he said.
"What yougotto do, you do," said Archer; "that's what you'rre always sayin'. Didn't you say you wanted it so's you could see that fellerr Blondel's house from the mountains? Therre it is," he said, nodding toward an old ring-net that stood near, "and it's some souveneerr too, 'cause it's been at the bottom of the old Rhine."
Tom looked at the spy-glass which Archer had thrown into the net and the net seemed all hazy and tangled for his eyes were brimming. He would not spare himself now.
"I see I'm the fool," he stammered; "I thought I shouldn't have started across because maybe you couldn't swim so good and didn't want to admit it."
"Me? I dived in Black Lake before you werre borrn," said Archer. This was not quite true, since he was two years younger than Tom, but Tom only smiled at him through glistening eyes.
"I see now I was crazy to think about finding her—anyway——"
"You haven't forrgot how she treated us, have you?" Archer retorted, quoting Tom's own words. "It came to me all of a sudden, when I dropped the glove, and that's when I called to you. And all of a sudden I thought how you walked back toward the house with herr that night and—and—do you think I don't understand—you darrned big chump?"
CHAPTER XXIIBREAKFAST WITHOUT FOOD CARDS
"Do you know what I think?" said Archer. "If Alsace used to belong to France, then the Rhine must have been the boundary between France and Gerrmany and we'rre right on that old frontierr now—hey? I'm a smarrt lad, huh? They used to have watch towers and things 'cause I got kept in school once forr sayin' a poem wrong about a fellerr that was in a watch towerr on the Rhine. I bet this towerr had something to do with that old frontierr and I bet it was connected with that castle overr on shorre, too. Therre was a picture of a fellerr in a kind of an arrmorr looking off the top of a towerr just like this—I remember 'cause I marrked him up with a pencil so's he'd have a swallerr-tailed coat and a sunbonnet."
Archer's education was certainly helping him greatly.
"If we could once get overr therre into that Black Forest," he continued, scanning the Badenshore and the heights beyond with the rescued glass, "we'd be on easy street 'cause I remember gettin' licked forr sayin', 'the abrupt west slopes of this romantic region are something or otherr with wild vineyards that grow in furious thing-um-bobs——'"
"What?" said Tom.
"Anyway, there's lots of grapes there," Archer concluded.
"If that's the way you said it I don't blame 'em for lickin' you," said sober Tom. "I think by tonight I'll be able to swim it. There seems to be some houses over there—that's one thing I don't like."
The Baden side, as well as they could make out through the haze, was pretty thickly populated for a mile or two, but the lonesome mountains arose beyond and once there, they would be safe, they felt sure.
They spent the day in the dilapidated frontier tower, as Archer called it, and he was probably not far from right in his guess about it. Certainly it had not been used for many years except apparently by fishermen occasionally, and the rotten condition of the seines showed that even such visitors had long since ceased to use it. Perhaps indeed it wasa sort of outpost watch tower belonging to the gray castle which they saw through the mist.
"Maybe it belonged to a Gerrman baron," suggested Tom.
"Anyway, it's abarrenisland," said Archer; "are you hungry?"
Tom sat in the doorway, favoring his hurt knee, and watched Archer move cautiously about among the sharp, slippery rocks, where he succeeded in cornering and spearing several bewildered fish which the troubled waters of the night had marooned in these small recesses.
"I'm afraid, you'll be seen from the shore," Tom said, but without that note of assurance and authority which he had been accustomed to use.
"Don't worry," said Archer, "it's too thick and hazy. Just wait till I spearr one morre. Therre's a beaut, now——"
They wasted half a dozen damp matches before they could get flame enough to ignite the whisk stick which Tom held ready, but when they succeeded they "commandeered" the broken door as a "warr measurre," to quote Archer, and kindled a fire just inside the doorway where they believed that the smoke, mingling with the mist, would not be seen through the gray, murky atmosphere.
It is a great mistake to be prejudiced against a fish just because it is German. Tom and Archer were quite free from that narrow bias. And if it should ever be your lot to be marooned in a ramshackle old watch tower on the Rhine on a dull, rainy day, remember that the same storm which has marooned you will have marooned some fishes among the crevices of rock—only you must be careful to turn them often and not let them burn. The broken rail of an old spiral stairway, if there happens to be one handy, can be twisted into a rough gridiron, and if you happen to think of it (as Tom did) you can use the battery case of your flashlight for a drinking-cup.
"If we couldn't have managed to get a light with these damp matches," he said, as they partook of their sumptuous breakfast, "we'd have just had to wait till the sun came out and we could a' got one with the lens in the spy-glass."
Once a scout, always a scout!