AN UNEXPECTED ORDER.
Within the fortress enclosure the boys took their bearings from memory
and soon stood in the shadow of the west wall, in the location described
by Stanislaws. They could see a sentry moving with measured tread on the
narrow walk above them, and waited until he passed beyond the turret in
the first turn of the circular parapet.
Billy led the way in setting foot on the elevation, with Henri close at
his heels. In quick step they were within the angles of the bastion, and
Billy took a peep along the wall to see if the sentinel had commenced
his backward beat. But the guard was taking it leisurely, for no armed
foe was known to be lurking without, and the duty of patrol this evening
was a matter of military form.
Henri in the meantime had been casting about for the loose stone marked
by the cross-shaped powder burn.
He had evidently found it, for Billy heard a whispered request for the
loan of his knife.
Inserting the blade in the thin line where the mortar had crumbled,
Henri dexterously twisted the stone out of its socket.
"It is here all right," he said, holding up the belt for the inspection
of his chum.
Billy, as a matter of precaution, replaced the stone and smoothed away
with his foot the earth particles which had fallen with the knife
chiseling.
When the guard finally approached, the belt was safely tucked away in
Henri's blouse, and both of the innocents were idly leaning over the
parapet, apparently viewing the activity in the Russ encampment, across
the San river.
The Slav soldier challenged the intruders in his own language, but in
answer the boys simply shook their heads, indicating lack of
understanding.
Looking downward, the guard hailed a number of Cossacks engaged in some
lance-tilting game in the stone square.
The Dons surrounded the boys the minute they descended to the level, and
failing to get satisfaction in their jerky string of questions, began to
pull and haul the captives in a roughly sportive way.
The boys vigorously protested, but to no avail, and Billy even resorted
to a real kick or two at savage shins. In the scuffle it so happened
that the amulet which Nikita had given Henri fell out of the torn front
of his blouse and under the feet of the tormentors.
The sight of the thonged lance-point had magic effect. The Cossacks
ceased their badgering as one man quitting. The Don in authority had
lifted a hand high above his head.
As Henri stooped to recover the flint talisman, the chief anticipated
him, presenting it with a grave salutation to the bewildered lad.
It dawned then upon the aviators that they had been recognized as
"brothers of the blood."
Henri turned an "I told you so" glance at his chum. That "useful in a
pinch" prediction had been verified in most opportune manner.
Salisky and Marovitch had no honor as a rescue party when they later
arrived in the enclosure, completing a hurried search for their pilots,
who had failed to report for the evening distribution of rations.
But the scouts could have exacted the credit of being a surprise, or,
rather, surprised party when they plumped upon the seated group of
Cossacks dividing the contents of their knapsacks with two youthful
recruits occupying the center space at the feast.
"By my sainted ancestors," exclaimed Salisky, "look at the lion tamers!"
He was careful, however, to say it in other than the native tongue.
"Been looking for us?" asked Billy in the most innocent way imaginable.
"No, we are just trotting about for our health," ironically replied
Marovitch.
"Better come along, however," advised Salisky, suppressing an
inclination to laugh, owing to the presence of the seriously gazing
tribesmen.
"All ready," cheerfully announced Billy, after Henri and himself had
made a handshaking round of the circle.
Marching away with the scouts, it had been made up between the chums
that the details of their adventure were strictly private business.
While particularly anxious to get Stanislaws' belt to Fritz that very
night, Henri concluded that the early morning would do, especially in
view of the fact that Salisky had made no mention of any move
immediately contemplated.
It developed, however, that the boy missed his reckoning, and proving
the old saying that "delays are dangerous." Hardly an hour of sleep, it
seemed to the boys, had been granted them when the hand of Salisky
dragged the pilots out of slumberland. In reality, it was cold, gray
dawn which accompanied the awakening process.
"Orders to backtrack," was the brief statement of the scout, himself
already attired for flight, and with dispatch case swung over his
shoulder.
"You don't mean right away?" Henri sat up in his cot to put the
question.
"Just as soon as you can get outside of some rations," replied Salisky,
"so there is no time for napping. It is a long ways to Warsaw and only
two stations for food and fuel in between."
"But you didn't say a thing to us about it last night," argued Henri,
greatly disturbed by the prospect of failure to fulfill their pledge to
Stanislaws.
"Come out of your dream, boys; it is not like you to question orders."
The scout stood by while the boys prepared for the journey, and they
were never alone again in this last hour in Przemysl.
Stanislaws' belt weighed like a chunk of lead against the heart of
Henri.
As Salisky had stated, the aviators had but two brief rest periods in
the flight to Warsaw, and they traveled at lightning speed.
At the end of this air voyage, the aviation chief peremptorily ordered
them off duty for at least two weeks. "No use of killing these birds,"
he said to Salisky, with a chuckle, "when you have taken all the fat off
their bones."
In their old quarters that first night of their return to Warsaw from
the Galician fortress, Henri looked about for a safe place to hide
Stanislaws' belt, which not only produced worry of mind but a positive
irritation in the several days' wearing. The chums lay awake long after
the other aviators in the dormitory were deep in slumber, and cudgeled
their brains to invent a way of shifting their new responsibility to
some likely cache for the time being.
Billy happened to think of the rusty, dusty portrait of some long
departed inmate of the house, hanging just outside the door which opened
on the stair landing.
He transferred the thought into Henri's ear, and the pair cautiously
tiptoed across the room, taking advantage of the intermittent shafts of
light sifting through the tall windows nearest the lamppost at the
street corner.
"Gee whiz!" muttered Billy, halting in momentary anguish, after stubbing
his toe against a chair leg.
"Ssh!" sibilantly warned Henri; "you'll wake the dead with your
clatter."
Noiselessly drawing back the door, the boys stood under the iron-framed
likeness of the early day representative of the household, Henri holding
the moleskin girdle in the crook of his arm.
Billy did the squirrel act in mounting the newel post, and could easily
reach behind the picture. His chum passed up the belt, and the climber
hooked the brass buckle over the wooden peg from which the portrait was
suspended.
"Safe enough now," he whispered, sliding down from his perch, getting a
helping arm from Henri.
Five minutes later the young aviators were sleeping the sleep of the
satisfied.